German Rule In Russia 1941-1945: A Study Of Occupation Policies

GERM AN RULE IN RUSSIA 1941-1945 A Study of Occupation Policies BY

ALEXANDER DALLIN Second, Revised, Edition

WESTVIEW PRESS/BOULDER, COLORADO

Second edition © Alexander Dallin 1981 All rights reserved. No part of this publication mav be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First edition 1957 Second, revised, edition 1981 Published by

THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world Printed in Hong Kong First U. S. edition 1957 Second, revised, U.S. edition 1981

Published in the United States of America in 1981 by Westview Press 5500 Central Avenue Boulder, Colorado 80301 Frederick A. Praeger, Publisher ISBN: 0-86531-102-1 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-52877

PREFACE a period of three years — from the summer of 1941 to the summer of 19 4 4— large parts of the Soviet Union were under German occupation. For another year thereafter, until the capitula­ tion of the Third Reich, several millions of former Soviet citizens were under German control as soldiers, prisoners, labourers, and refugees. For the Soviet Government the German invasion consti­ tuted a crucial test of its ability to control its people at a time of crisis. To the sixty-odd million in German-occupied territory the war provided, for the first time in over a generation, an opportunity to choose between two alternatives of allegiance. In one way or another every inhabitant was compelled, as Lenin had said in 19 17, to ‘ vote with his feet’. T o the Germans the same events represented a unique challenge — militarily, politically, morally, economically. German policy, in the invasion, occupation, and retreat from Russia, is the subject of this book. The titanic proportions of the German-Soviet duel have made it necessary to concentrate attention on certain of its facets. The intricate interplay of men, forces, and ideas which produces that which is, euphemistically and often incorrectly, called policy, had in the context of Nazi Germany a coloration all its own. The focus of investigation has been the goals and methods — and dis­ putes concerning them — at the top of the German pyramid, inter­ spersed with brief excursions into the field of their implementation where they seemed essential for an understanding of wie es eigentlich gewesen. It may be well to enumerate some of the problems which have not been discussed. First and foremost, the military aspects of the campaign as well as the general contour of Soviet war-time policy have been taken for granted. Furthermore, the attitude of the Soviet population under German rule — a subject which is the logical complement of the present study — could not be treated in any detail. While inevitably the people’s feelings and behaviour were at least partially cause and effect of German occupation policy, a methodical discussion of them here would have exceeded all tolerable limits. In the same manner, no extensive discussion has been provided of developments which have received detailed treatment by others or which await separate thorough monographic analysis. F or

VI

Preface

The first group would include the Vlasov movement,1 Ukrainian nationalism,12 and the extermination of the Jews,3 The latter would include internal developments in the Baltic States under German occupation, industrial organization in the German-held U .S.S.R ., and the history of the military collaborators of the Reich, the socalled Osttruppen. Part I of this book essays to describe the historical setting of the German invasion in 1941, the motivation of the Nazi leadership, the first months of the war, and the organization of German occupation government. Part II surveys German long-range goals, with particu­ lar emphasis on the nationality question, and their implementation in the various areas of occupation — Ukraine, Belorussia, Baltic States, Caucasus, Crimea, and Great Russia proper — each reflecting a different set of German premises, practices, and personalities, and provoking bitter disputes among them. Part III seeks to analyse the German approach to certain major functional areas, such as agri­ culture and industry, prisoners of war and forced labour, culture, education, and religion. Finally, Part IV discusses German political policy, propaganda, and utilization of defectors, and concludes with a sketch of the ‘ political warfare ’ experiments in the last year of the war. One might add that the protagonists considered in this study appear in the peculiar context of what has been called Ostpolitik — the German outlook on the Russian East. If some of the personalities emerge from this particular piece of the historical mosaic without either the halo of perfection or the devil’s horns with which ‘ public opinion’ has invested them, it should be recalled that the task here has not been to assess reputations of men but to gauge their per­ formance in one specific sector of history. If, beyond that, this volume contributes to an understanding of totalitarianism in action, as well as to an analysis of alternatives to Stalinism, the purpose of this study will have been well served. ALEXANDER DALLIN

1 See George Fischer, Soviet Opposition to Stalin (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1952), and sources listed on p. 553 below. 2 See John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalismf 1 9 3 9 -19 4 5 (New York : Columbia University Press, 1955). 3 See Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution (New York : Beechhurst Press, 1953 )-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I a m greatly indebted to the Social Science Research Council, Washington, D.C., and to the Russian Research Center, Harvard University, each of which supported part of the research on which this study is based. I further wish to acknowledge my gratitude for the stimulation and advice received from the late Franz L . Neumann, from Professors Geroid T . Robinson and John H. Wuorinen, of Columbia University, and from my father, David J. Dallin. I am especially indebted to Professor Philip E. Mosely, who has unsparingly given me the benefit of his invaluable advice, help, and encourage­ ment throughout this project. I am most grateful to Dr. Max Beloff, of Nuffield College, and Mr. Alan Bullock, of St. Catherine’s Society, Oxford University, for kindly reading the completed manuscript and making helpful comments and suggestions. I likewise wish to acknowledge the permission granted by the U.S. Department of Defense, Office of Public Information, to consult and cite a number of captured German records not hitherto available for private research, and the assistance of Lt.-Col. Harry L. Ginn in securing this permission. Others who have assisted and facilitated my work by advice or information are : Dr. John A. Armstrong, University of Wisconsin; Dr. Raymond A. Bauer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. Paul W. Blackstock, Washington, D .C .; Dr. Karl Brandt, Stanford University; Dr. Herbert Dinerstein, The R AN D Corporation, Washington, D .C .; Dr. Fritz T . Epstein, Library of Congress, Washington, D .C .; Dr. George Fischer, Brandeis University; Dr. Harold J. Gordon, Arlington, V a .; Dr. Anton Hoch, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, Ger­ many ; Dr. Oleg Hoeffding, The RA N D Corporation, Santa Monica, C a lif.; Dr. Alex Inkeles, Harvard University; Mr. Melvin J. Lasky, Berlin, Germ any; Mr. Michael M. Luther, New York C ity ; Mr. Boris Nicolaevsky, New York City; Mr. Rudolph L. Pins, Washington, D .C .; Dr. Nicholas P. Vakar, Wheaton College; Dr. Gerhard L. Weinberg, University of Kentucky; Mr. Boris Yakovlev, Institute for the Study of the U .S.S.R ., Munich, Germ any; my colleagues on the Harvard University Refugee Interview Project, the Research Program on the U .S.S.R ., New York City, and the War Documentation Project, Alexandria, Va. I am sincerely appreciative of the information, and in some vii

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Acknowledgments

instances documents, supplied by the following through interviews or correspondence: 1 German Informants.— Fritz Arlt, Johannes Benzing, Otto Bräuti­ gam, Friedrich Buchardt, Walter von Conradi, Artur Doellerdt, Hasso von Etzdorf, Nikolas von Grote, Hans von Herwarth, Gustav Hilger, Peter Kleist, Rudolf von Kniipffer, Hans Koch, Ernst Köstring, Erhard Kroeger, Georg Leibbrandt, Gerhard von Mende, Siegfried Nickel, Alexander Nikuradze, Theodor Oberländer, KarlGeorg Pfleiderer, Walter Schenk, Otto Schiller, Ehrenfried Schütte, Eberhardt Taubert, Melitta Wiedemann, Adolf Windecker. Refugee Informants.—Artashes Abeghian, Anton Adamovich, Mikhail Alchibaia, Vasilii Alexeev, Alexander Avtorkhanov, Shamba Balinov, Mikhail Bobrov, Alexander Cordzaia, Abo Fatalibeili, Arkadii Gayev, Boris Karanovich, Mikhail Kedia, Edige Kirimal, Mikhail Kitaeff, Constantin Krypton, Akhmed Nabi Magoma, Vladimir Melanders, Volodymyr Miyakowsky, Mecid Musazade, Mikhailo Orest, Alexander Philipov, Hryhory Podoliak, Vladimir Pozdniakov, Grigorii Saharuni, Mikhail Shatoff, Konstantin Shteppa, Dmitrii Stepanov, Garip Sultan, Kabarda Tamby, Evgenii Vetlugin. Obviously the responsibility for the interpretation given in this study rests solely with the author. I trust that the informants will understand that, however grateful I am for their assistance, the effort to achieve intellectual honesty and historical accuracy must take precedence over personal appreciation in cases of conflicting evidence and interpretation. Finally, I wish to acknowledge with gratitude the technical help given by Peter Dornan and Nelson Glover, New York City, and Frl. Käthe Heidrich, Munich, Germany. The interminable hours spent by my wife, Florence C. Dallin, in substantive, editorial, and technical help, have made this book in a very real sense a co-operative effort and cannot adequately be rewarded by any expression of appreciation. 1 Names of those desiring to remain anonymous omitted.

CONTENTS PAGE

Preface N ote on S ources and S tyle

v

xvii

Part I — T H E S E T T I N G C hapter I — G E R M A N Y A N D T H E E A S T June 22, 1941 Germany Views the East :the Background Russia in the Nazi World Sources of Dissent The Road to War Barbarossa : Pro and Con Crossing the Rubicon C hapter II — PO W ER A N D P E R S O N A L I T I E S : F E U D S A N D F IS S U R E S O V ER T H E E A S T E R N Q U E S T IO N The Nazi Mosaic The First Steps Alfred Rosenberg Heinrich Himmler The Army and the Commissar Decree Heirs Presumptive The Economic Agencies The Foreign Office The Propaganda Ministry

3 3 4 7 10 12 15 18 20 20 22 24 26 30 34 38 40 42

C hapter III — P O L I T I C A L G O A L S A N D T H E N A T IO N A L I T Y Q U E S T IO N The Kremlin and the People Rosenberg and the Nationality Question Cutting the Cake Blueprint of Conquest The Three Concepts

44 44 46 49 53 56

C hapter IV — F A C E T O F A C E : T H E F I R S T S I X M O NTH S OF TH E W AR The Periods of the War On the Wings of Victory In the East

59 59 61 63

IX

X

Contents TAThe means of execution must increase the deterrent effect still further. . . ,l It was obvious that such a policy precluded co-operation, let alone ‘ alliance’, with the population in the East. Leningrad Though considering it an important target, German pre-war plans had not specifically settled the fate of Leningrad. Initially Hitler had been inclined to preserve it, deeming it ‘ incomparably more beautiful’ than Moscow, which was due to be levelled to the ground ‘ as the centre of [Bolshevik] doctrine’.2 Once the idea of razing enemy cities had caught hold, the Führer promptly added Leningrad to the list. On July 8 Haider noted that ‘ it is the Fuhrer’s firm decision to level Moscow and Leningrad and make them un­ inhabitable so as to relieve us of the necessity of having to feed the population through the winter. . . . ’ The material considera­ tions, however, were probably little more than convenient arguments for the military. Haider alludes to the deeper reasons advanced by Hitler on the same occasion : the annihilation of these cities would be tantamount to ‘ a national catastrophe which [would] deprive not only Bolshevism but also Muscovite nationalism of their centres’ .3 A week later Hitler informed his associates of the pending negotia­ tions with his Finnish allies. According to Bormann’s record of the 1 ‘ Erlass des Chefs des O K W *, September 16, 19 41, Document 389-P S, T M W C , xxv, 5 3 1. See also W Bfh. Ostland, ‘ Richtlinien*, September 25, 19 41. Document Occ E - 3 #, Y IV O . While examples of actual ‘ measures* taken under these decrees are abundant, there are also some known instances of hostile reactions by German officers. One is recounted by Ulrich von Hassell, who labelled the Eastern campaign a terrible ‘ return to savagery*. A young officer now in Munich [Hassell recorded] received an order to shoot 350 civilians, allegedly partisans, among them women and children, who had been herded together into a big barn. He hesitated at first, but was then warned that the penalty for disobedience is death. He begged for ten minutes time to think it over, and finally carried out the order with machine-gun fire. He was so shaken by this episode that, although only slightly wounded, he was determined not to go back to the front. ( The Von Hassell Diaries [Garden City : Doubleday, 1947], p. 207.) See also Es sprach Hans Fritzsche (Stuttgart : Thiele, 1949), pp. 248-9. 2 H T T , p. 5 (entry for July 5-6, 1941). See also Haider, Diary, vi, 187. 3 Haider, Diary, vi, 2 12 .

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conference, ‘ the Führer wants to raze Leningrad to the ground, so as then to turn it over to the Finns’ .1 With German troops rapidly approaching the city early in September, the High Command was so confident of victory that armoured and air force units were released from the Leningrad front for use in the attack farther south.12 Hitler informed Mussolini that the capture of the city was imminent.3 Schlüsselburg, an outlying fortress fe ll; Leningrad was cut off, and the noose was slowly being tightened. Meanwhile Berlin prepared the world for the ‘ disappearance’ of the metropolis on the Neva. The Nazi propagandists had an apology ready: the Germans reportedly had discovered a Soviet plan to destroy the city.4 Behind the scene, the Army weighed various alternatives to be pursued once Leningrad had fallen. Normal occupation was rejected ‘ because in this case responsibility for food supplies would rest with u s’ . A second possibility was to seal off the town, ‘ if possible through an electrically charged wire surrounding it, guarded by machine guns’. The disadvantage of this solution would be not the starvation of the population but the ‘ danger of epidemics spreading to our front ’. More­ over, it was ‘ doubtful whether our soldiers [could] be expected to shoot at women and children trying to break out’ . A third solution would have been to evacuate women, children, and old people from Leningrad, ‘ and let the remainder starve ’. Theoretically an acceptable course, it was rejected because of the new problems it would create and because ‘ the strongest will long survive in the city’. Finally, a fourth alternative was to raze the town and then turn it over to the Finns. This was ‘ not bad as a political solution’ , but the High Command decided in line with Hitler’s views that the disposition of the population could not be left to the Finns: ‘ That will be our jo b ’ . 1 Document 2 2 1- L , T M W C , xxxviii, 90. For the unconvincing assertion of the top military that they did not know of the order, see T M W C , x, 607, and iv, 550. Finland was loath to attack Leningrad, in spite of insistent prodding by Keitel and Jodi. See Marshal Gustaf Mannerheim, Erinnerungen (Zürich : Atlantis, 1952), pp. 454-8 ; and Waldemar Erfurth, Der finnische Krieg, J9 4 J-J 9 4 4 (Wiesbaden : Limes Verlag, 1950), pp. 66 ff. 2 Haider, Diary, vii, 83-4 (entry for September 5, 1941). 3 Galeazzo Ciano, Diplomatie Papers (London : Odhams, 1948), pp. 447-9 (conference of August 25, 1941). Hitler told Mussolini that he wished to have Leningrad fall without destroying it, after annihilating the Red forces around it ; Germany would save its own forces by avoiding street fighting. Goring, on his part, opined that *for economic reasons1 encirclement was preferable to conquest of large cities. (Conference of September 16, 19 41, Document 003-EC , T M W C , xxxvi, 109.) 4 ‘ Leningrad soll vernichtet werden*, V B -M , September 16, 1941.

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The Setting

PT. 1

The memorandum drafted by a senior navy officer toyed with another ingenious ‘ solution ’ : After Leningrad’s capitulation we shall allow the philanthropist Roosevelt to send either food supplies to the inhabitants not going into captivity, or to send neutral ships under the supervision of the Red Cross, or to ship them off to his continent. . . . He was quick to add, with astonishing sincerity: ‘ Of course, this offer cannot be accepted; it has propaganda value only’. The decision, therefore, was to ‘ seal off Leningrad hermetically’ and then to ‘ weaken [it] by terror and growing starvation’ . * The remainder of the ‘ fortress garrison’ [the Army memorandum continued] will be left to itself during the winter. In the spring we shall occupy the town (if the Finns do so before us, we don’t mind), remove the survivors into captivity in the interior of Russia, level Leningrad to the ground with high explosives, and leave the area to the north of the Neva to the Finns.1 Hitler confirmed his earlier decision that the capitulation of Leningrad was not to be accepted even if offered by the enemy. Clearly aware of the drastic nature of his order, he felt constrained to explain it to his close associates: I suppose that some people are clutching their heads with both hands to find an answer to the question, ‘ How can the Führer destroy a city like St. Petersburg ? ’ Plainly I belong by nature to quite another species. I would prefer not to see anyone suffer, not to do harm to anyone. But when I realize that the species is in danger, then in my case sentiment gives way to the coldest reason.2 By a similar process of ‘ coldest reason’ General Jodi embroidered a further justification of this policy. The measure, he announced, was morally justified ; for it must be assumed that the enemy would mine the town before leaving, and, furthermore, there would be a serious danger of epidemics. Two corollaries, he argued, followed : first, the life of no German soldier was to be risked to save Soviet 1 ‘ Vortragsnotiz Leningrad ’, September 21, 1941, Document N O K W -2 11* . The author of this document drafted in Abt. Landesverteidigung, cannot be identified with certainty. Hitler’s plan to encircle, rather than to take, Leningrad has been traced back to a World War I memorandum of Ludendorff. (Bernhard von Lossberg, Im Wehrmachtsführungsstab [Hamburg : Nolke, 1949], pp. 132-4.) The plans for starving out the city and refusing to accept its capitulation w ere known to at least some staff officers as early as September 5. For the revulsion w hich these projects generated in a member of the military opposition, see ‘ Ausgewählte Briefe von Generalmajor Helmuth StiefF ’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (Munich), ü (1954). 3°2. 2 H T T , p. 44 (entry for September 25-26, 1941).

CH. IV

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towns or their population ; second, the mass escape of the population into the interior of Russia would ‘ increase chaos’ and ‘ to that extent facilitate our administration and exploitation of the occupied areas’.1 The matter seemed to be settled. In his speech of November 8 Hitler solemnly proclaimed that the enemy ‘ will starve to death in Leningrad ’ — a statement which, the press reported, was greeted with ‘ stormy applause’.12 But Leningrad did not fall. Instead there began the fantastic siege whose full drama it is still difficult to fathom. With hundreds of thousands dead from starvation, the metropolis held out. All through the winter the Germans were unable to advance. Hitler’s plans remained on paper. The city never surrendered.3 Leningrad exemplifies the extremes to which Nazi planning was carried. It also illustrates the willingness of the OKW leadership to carry out Hitler’s orders. At no point did it question the Fiihrer’s directives on moral grounds.4 Finally the fate of the city high­ lighted Soviet determination to resist at all costs and underscored the heavy price the people paid for this resistance. Behind the Facade The first half-year of the war did not pass without repeated and bitter conflicts among the contending German ministries and agencies. Rosenberg found himself isolated and opposed on all sides.5 Symptomatic of the enmity which surrounded him were the 1 Jodi to OKH /GenStdH /O p.Abt., October 7, 19 41, Document 12 3 -C , T M W C , xxxiv, 426. See also T M W C , xix, 29 ; Document N O K W -36 8 * ; and H T T , p. 71. 2 V B -M , November 10, 1941. See also ibid. November 1 1, 1941. 3 For accounts of Leningrad under the siege, see Konstantin Krypton, Osada Leningrada (New York : Chekhov Publishing House, 1952) ; Vera Inber, P u lkov skii meridian (M oscow : O G IZ , 19 4 3 ) ; and A. Bogdanovich, ‘ la — grazhdanin Leningrada’ , N o vy i Zhurnal (New York), xxi-xxii (1949). On Hitler’s unchanged outlook in 1942, see H T T , pp. 400-1, 617, 6 21-2. 4 The German Naval High Command adopted a somewhat less extreme position on this question. See U S Department of the Navy, Führer Conferences on M atters Dealing with the German N avy\ 19 42 (Washington, 1948), pp. 109, 130 -1. A curious order of a German army corps before Leningrad provided for use of artillery against civilians trying to break out of the city, so as to prevent German infantrymen from being compelled to shoot at innocent women and children. (V A K , ‘ Kriegstagebuch*, entry for October 24, 19 41, Document N O K W 2362*.) 5 For the conflicts between Rosenberg and Himmler, see, for instance, Dorsch to Rosenberg, July 10, 1941, Document 022-P S, T M W C , xxv, 8 1-3 ; Rosenberg to Lammers, August 27, 1941, Document N O -372 6 * ; Rosenberg to Lammers, October 14, 19 41, Document N G -1 6 8 3 * ; Himmler, ‘ Aktennotiz*, November 15, 1941, Document N O -5 32 9 * ; Heydrich to Rosenberg, January 10, 1942, Document

8o

The Setting

PT. I

rumours, widespread by December 1941, that the Führer would shortly relieve him as Minister for the Occupied E a st; some of the gossip pointed to Goring as his likely successor.1 The crucial conflict within the German elite, however, related much more directly to the conduct of the war. Until October it appeared that Soviet opposition, though more determined than expected, could be overcome. Disintegration in the enemy’s midst — so German generals liked to believe — was approaching catastrophic proportions: Soviet manpower and economic resources seemed exhausted; the Red Army was committing a series of military errors; untrained divisions and improvised home guard units were hastily thrown into action against the battlehardened German troops. In the middle of October Soviet govern­ ment agencies and the diplomatic corps moved to Kuibyshev, and Moscow was on the verge of panic.2 And yet things were increasingly running counter to Hitler’s expectations. The attack was slowed down and in some sectors entirely arrested. In his speech of November 8 Hitler for the first time publicly betrayed some concern and expressed some apology for the continuing delay.3 Casualties were mounting. By the end of the year about one out of every four German soldiers in the East had been killed or wounded, and the Wehrmacht needed 2-5 million troops as replacements.4 While in August the generals had turned down Goebbels’ plan for a national collection of winter clothing for the Army, by October the shortage of warm clothing was becoming acute. Transportation difficulties on occupied soil severely impaired shipment of supplies. Oils and fuels were delayed. By their own light-hearted optimism, the Nazi leaders had exposed their troops to serious hardship and jeopardized the course of military operations.5 Occ E 4 -22 *, Y IV O ; S S Brigadeführer Stahlecker, 4Einsatzgruppe A : Gesamt­ bericht bis zum 15. Oktober 1 9 4 1 ', Document 18 0 -L , T M W C , xxxvii, 670 ff. ; Rosenberg, Portrait, pp. 2 13 , 304. 1 Kleist, op . cit. pp. 189-90. The argument was that it was time for the economic agencies to take over since military and political work in the East had been stymied. (Interview G-9.) Actually, no such plan seems to have been seriously entertained. 2 Mikhail Koriakov, ‘ i6-oe oktiabria*, N o v y i Zhurnal, xxi (1949), 1 5 8 -8 7 ; interview H -144. A recent study shows, however, that the Moscow panic cannot be interpreted as a political revolt. (Herbert Dinerstein and Leon Gour£, Moscow in Crisis [Glencoe, 111. : Free Press, 1954] ) 3 V B -M , November 10, 1941. 4 Haider, D ia ry , vii, 16, 36, 82 ; Garthoff, op. cit. pp. 423-38 ; Blau, op. cit. p. 88 ; Helmuth Greiner, D ie oberste Wehrmachtführung 19 3 9 - 19 4 3 (Wiesbaden : Limes Verlag, 1951)» P* 395 5 Haider, D ia ry , vii, 13 ; Semmler, op. cit. p. 55 ; Milton Shulman, Defeat in the West (New York : Dutton, 1948), p. 69.

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While the General Staff was overly optimistic about the prospects of the war, Hitler, by constant intervention in military affairs, caused repeated changes of basic strategy and thereby provoked resentment among his subordinates. ‘ The Führer’s eternal meddlings in matters whose pattern he does not understand, are becoming more than anyone can stand’, the chief of the General Staff noted in his diary. After bitter and strained disputes Haider suggested to Brauchitsch that they resign because T regard the situation created by the Führer’s interference as unendurable. . . .’ 1 By December i the German advance had been stopped. Rundstedt was compelled to abandon Rostov, occupied only a week earlier. This first retreat provoked a clash between Hitler and the old field-marshal. A few days later, heavy frost set in, and on December 6 the Red Army began a counter-offensive before em­ battled Moscow. Even Keitel now advised digging in for the winter — only to earn from his beloved Führer the epithet of ‘ straw head’ and to weigh resignation and suicide. Brauchitsch suffered a heart attack, which provided Hitler with a welcome opportunity to resume his purge of the old Army stalwarts. Field-Marshal von Bock, commanding the army group facing Moscow, was granted a ‘ leave of absence for reasons of health’. Rundstedt was replaced by the fanatical Reichenau. Field-Marshal von Leeb was relieved of his command. When Colonel General Hoepner was compelled to retreat, in violation of Hitler’s orders, the Führer demoted him to private and dismissed him from the Army. Finally, Hitler officially relieved Brauchitsch of his post and on December 19 made himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army High Command. Hitler found scapegoats for his failures but remained hopelessly out of touch with reality. German divisions were losing not only their ability to manoeuvre but most of their equipment, and literally tens of thousands of German soldiers suffered injuries from frostbite. Napoleon’s ghost had returned.2 1 On the strategic controversies, especially in connection with the attack on Moscow, see above, pp. 6 1-3 ; Haider, D iary, vi, 239, 272-3, 286 ; vii, 18, 59, 61 ; Heinz Guderian, ‘ The Moscow Offensive 1 9 4 1 ’ , A n Cosantdir ; Irish Defence Jo u rn a l, ix (1949), 214 -25 , 264-76 ; H itler als Feldherr (Munich : Münchner-Dom Verlag, 1949) ; Kurt Assmann, ‘ Battle for M oscow’ , Foreign A ffairs (New York), January 1950, pp. 309-26 ; Peter Bor, Gespräche mit H aider (Wiesbaden : Limes Verlag, 1950) ; B. H. Liddell-Hart, The German Generals T alk (New York : Morrow, 1948). John W . Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis o f Power (New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1953), pp. 5 2 1, 525, corrects a widespread misapprehension : the controversy was not along clear-cut lines of Hitler v. General Staff. 2 Circulation of Caulaincourt’s book on the campaign of 18 12 was prohibited, according to Haider, who also claimed later that most Arm y commanders favoured withdrawing from Russia to Poland. (Cited in Garthoff, op. cit. p. 433.)

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P T. I

Most of the German leadership apparently failed to sense the scope of the upset or its possible implications. Only months later, in the spring of 1942, did Hitler admit to his closest associates that what had happened in Russia was ‘ the sort of upset that leaves you groggy for a moment’ . Recalling the crisis in early December, he said: ‘ You can’t imagine . . . how much the last three months have worn out my strength, tested my nervous resistance’.1 The first phase of the Eastern campaign was over. Hitler had failed to carry out his plan. Allowing no margin for error, he was now left without reserves, surrounded by sycophants and bitter men. On December 7 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and thereby com­ mitted herself to all-out war against Britain and America at the price of neutrality with the U .S.S.R . Again Hitler had mis­ calculated : by goading Japan to march against Singapore he had kept-her from striking that fatal blow against the Soviet Far East which might still have shattered Stalin’s empire. Irrationally, Hitler declared war on the United States, thus adding one more decisive enemy to his list of foes. Germany had occupied huge blocks of territory in the East. It had disrupted and decimated the Soviet front and had captured millions of men. And yet it had failed. One may argue that by December 1941 Hitler had lost the war. He had conjured up the coalition of Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States, and he had failed to realize his cherished plans in the Ostraum. At the front, the blitz campaign had been stalled, never to be resumed. Behind the lines, a slow but unmistakable change in attitude had set in. It is an academic question whether or not Germany could still have made the Soviet peoples into its allies against the Kremlin. Hitler and his minions considered no such radical departure. For the next phase of the war, the premises remained the same as in 1941. Now that the continuation of the war was manifest, Berlin realized, however, that it needed the Ostraum — its manpower and its re­ sources.2 Thus the Reich embarked on the age-old policy of the carrot and the stick. But the enticements which it was willing to dangle in front of the people’s eyes were few ; they were offered 1 H T T , pp. 2 2 i, 339. 2 Though decidedly ahead of the bulk of German policy-makers, the memo­ randum submitted by General Wagner on December 13 is indicative of the insight which some circles had acquired. ‘ The military situation*, wrote the Quarter­ master-General, ‘ demands that we win to our side the population in the occupied Eastern territories and beyond this, that we launch a telling propaganda slogan for the creation of an anti-Bolshevik, revolutionary movement on Soviet territory . . . the dissolution of collective farms, and the re-establishment of private property.* ([Wagner] to Rosenberg, December 13, 19 4 1, E A P 9 9 /4 11*, C R S.)

C H . IV

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»3

half-heartedly and were primarily calculated to aid the war effort. Far more determined were German moves aimed at stepping up the terror that was to cow the populace into obedience.1 1 On December 19 Rosenberg announced that ‘ all residents of the occupied Eastern territories are subject to obligatory labour according to their abilities \ (RM fdbO., ‘ Verordnung über die Einführung der Arbeitspflicht*, December 19, 1941, Alfred Meyer et al.y eds., Das Recht der besetzten Ostgebiete [Munich : F. Eher, 1943] [hereafter cited as Meyer, Recht]y suppl. , 0 III Ba 5.) Though not specifically intended for the East, the infamous Nacht und Nebel decree, issued on December 7, was symptomatic of the new trend. (‘ Richtlinien für die Verfolgung von Straftaten gegen das Reich oder die Besetzungsmacht in den besetzten Gebie­ ten*, Document 090-L, T M W C , xxxvii, 572-4.) See also the order of the 3rd Panzer Group ordering the burning of all indigenous villages within ten kilometres of the front and the forcible removal of the population. (Pz. Gruppe 3, ‘ Behandlung der Bevölkerung*, December 18, 19 4 1, Document N O K W -6 79 *.)

CHAPTER V

THE AD M INISTRATIO N

OF TH E

OCCUPIED

EAST

A new type of man will then take shape, real masters, whom, of course, it will be impossible to use in the West : viceroys.—

Adolf Hitler

The Ostministerium four weeks after the invasion had begun, Hitler appointed Rosenberg to head the civilian administration of the occupied East. On the surface, this designation marked a setback for the competing agencies and rival leaders. In reality Rosenberg’s appointment solved none of the budding conflicts. At the very conference of July 1 6, 1941, at which Hitler informed his associates of his decisions regarding the administration of the East, disagreement was clearly apparent over the three interlocking problems of basic policy, jurisdiction of competing agencies, and personnel.1 The man selected to administer the Ukraine as Rosenberg’s lieutenant was Erich Koch, who was known to oppose Rosenberg’s political con­ ception and who, the latter feared, would ‘ very soon fail to obey his directives’. Given their animosity to Rosenberg, Koch’s appoint­ ment was a political victory for Bormann and Goring. The long harangue over the jurisdiction of the S S at the same conference likewise reflected interdepartmental friction. Since Himmler was not present, his future powers in the East we*e discussed frankly; Bormann added that during this phase of the conversations ‘ evidently all the participants also think of the competence of the Reichsmarschall [Goring]’. The police and economic agencies remained the main challengers of Rosenberg’s authority, even though Hitler expressed the vain hope that ‘ in practice the conflict would very soon be settled’. The result of the conference was the promulgation, on July 17, S ome

1 [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk’ , July 16, 1941, Document 2 2 1 - L , T M W C , xxxviii, 86-94. On ^ e background of this conference, see also below, pp. 12 3, 204. See also Franz Haider, Diary (Nuremberg : Office of Chief of Counsel for W ar Crimes, 1946), vi, 248 ; and Rosenberg, Portrait, p. 308. Besides Bor­ mann, Rosenberg, and Hitler, the meeting was attended by Keitel, Goring, and Lammers. Rosenberg, while correctly sensing the challenge which the GoringKoch combination represented for his policy, quite erroneously conceived of the restrictions imposed on his own authority in the East as a purely temporary measure. See the extract from Rosenberg’s diary on the Ju ly 16 conference, ed. by R. M . W . Kempner, Der Monat (Berlin), i, no. 10, p. 36. 84

CH. v

The Administration of the Occupied East

85

of a basic Führer decree on the administration of the Eastern territories. In essence, it provided for the transfer of the conquered regions from military to civil administration once they had been pacified. Except for the areas which were to be incorporated into neighbouring states (Germany, Rumania, Finland), the East was to be placed under Rosenberg’s new Ostministerium, with its head­ quarters in Berlin. The authority of the Army, the Four-Year Plan, and the SS were defined by separate agreements and were therefore ‘ not touched’ by this directive.1 On August 20 Hitler turned over the first areas of occupied territories to civil rule, and two Reich Commissariats, Ostland and Ukraine, were activated on September 1, 19 4 1.2 Further areas were transferred from the military to civil administration at subse­ quent dates.3 By the end of the year, the occupied East had sub­ stantially assumed the administrative framework which it was to preserve for the remainder of the German occupation.4 The following chart (p. 87) summarizes the general structure of the Rosenberg Ministry [Reichsministerium für die besetzten 1 Hitler, ‘ Erlass des Führers über die Verwaltung*, Ju ly 17, 19 41, Document 1997-P S, T M W C , xxix, 235-7. The Army*s jurisdiction had been defined by a decree of June 25 (‘ Erlass des Führers über die Ernennung von Wehrmacht­ befehlshabern*, June 25, 19 41, Document 19 9 7 -P S #) ; that of the economic agencies on June 29 (Hitler, ‘ Erlass des Führers über die Wirtschaft*, June 29, 19 4 1, Document 0 12 -P S * ) ; and that of the police and S S , on July 17 (‘ Erlass des Führers über die polizeiliche Sicherung*, Document 19 9 7 -P S #). The latter decree specifically delegated to the S S and its agencies responsibility for ‘ police security* in the East. (Art. I.) Though the same decree (Art. II) empowered Himmler to issue directives on security matters to Rosenberg’s subordinates, Rosenberg sought to minimize the authority of police officials by stressing their subordination to his representatives. (See also Rosenberg, memorandum, n.d., Document 1056-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 595.) 2 D ie O stkartei: Grundriss des Neuaufbaus im Osten (Berlin, 1943), Heft i, no. 7, p. 5 ; Hitler, ‘ Zweiter Erlass des Führers’ , August 20, 19 4 1, and O K H , ‘ Vermerk*, August 25, 19 4 1, Document 19 7 -P S * . 3 Vinnitsa, Kiev, Zhitomir, and Cherkassy districts on October 20 ; Nikolayev, Kherson, and Nikopol* districts on November 15 ; and Estonia on December 5, 1941. 4 All the while no public announcements were made about the new order. Evidently the ban on this subject was lifted in late October. (See ‘ v. St.* [von Ungem-Sternberg], ‘ Nach vier Monaten*, V B -M , October 29, 1941 ; and Gustav Fochler-Hauke, ‘ Zwischen Front und Frieden’ , V B -M , November 6-8, 1941.) The first public hints regarding the civil administration were contained in Hitler’s order of the day to the Arm y on October 2 and his speech of October 3. {D oku­ mente der deutschen Politik [Berlin : Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1944], vol. ix, part i, 293-306.) Finally on November 17, it was publicly announced in Berlin that Hitler had decreed the establishment of a civil administration for the pacified parts of the East ; and on December 18 the names of some of the top German officials appointed to the East were released. (Press release, November 17, 19 41, Document N G -37 0 9 ; Dokumente der deutschen P o litik , op. cit. pp. 307-8 ; V B -B , editorial, November 18, 1941 ; Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte [Berlin], December 19 4 1, pp. 963-7.)

86

The Setting

PT. I

Ostgebiete, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, officially abbreviated R M fdb O .; more frequently referred to as Ostministerium, or ‘ O M i’] as of the end of 1941. Actually, the organization chart does not tell the story of its competence. Its entire Main Department IV, which was to deal with technical matters such as highways, electric power, and waterways in the East, never came into being; most of these functions were absorbed by the Army, the Armaments and the Transportation Ministries.1 Likewise, in the further course of events, the Propaganda and Food Ministries managed to take over tasks which Rosenberg had originally assigned to himself. Finally, in 1943 a substantial reorganization increased the influence which the SS wielded within the OM i.12 Rosenberg, the inefficient philosopher, was obliged to rely on a number of associates for the formulation and execution of policy. His deputy Ostminister was Alfred Meyer, Gauleiter of Westphalia, whom Rosenberg had spotted for the job as early as April 1941 because he was an ‘ old N azi’ and in political affairs always took a ‘ clear and National Socialist stand’ .3 In his memoirs, Rosenberg frankly described this mediocrity as unable to behave with the appropriate dignity in dealing with other agencies.4 In reality, Meyer played virtually no policy-making role whatever. Devoting a good deal of time to his other positions, he assumed some importance only as an arch-enemy of Gottlob Berger, who as a high SS official came to occupy a key position in the OMi after 1943. It is this Berger who gave perhaps the best epigrammatic description of Meyer in classifying him as ‘ too weak to do good, and too cowardly to sin’ .5 A man of far greater importance during the first two years of the O M i’s existence was Dr. Georg Leibbrandt, one of Rosenberg’s old associates. Drab and unspectacular though he was, Leibbrandt at least espoused a definite policy and endeavoured to carry it out. Born into a German family living in the Odessa area near the Black Sea, he had come to Germany after the Russian Revolution; for years he wrote on the question of German colonists in Russia. From I 9 3 I_ 3 > as a recipient of a Rockefeller grant, he studied in Paris and the United States. After Hitler’s accession to power Leibbrandt 1 Herbert Drescher, affidavit, Document N O -5 1 8 3*. See also Georg Leibbrandt, affidavit, Document N O -5 2 3 3 * . Over Rosenberg’s protests, Albert Speer also assumed control of inland transportation and construction in the spring of 1942 — a process formalized by a Hitler decree on June 9, 1942. 2 See below, Chapter IX . 3 Rosenberg, appendix to ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’, April 7, 19 4 1, Document 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 559-60. 4 Rosenberg, Portrait, pp. 303-4. 5 Berger to Himmler, March 27, 1943, Document N O -14 8 8 *.

5-

M A IN D E P T II : A D M IN IS T R A T IV E (Runte)

M A IN * D E P T . I : P O L IT IC A L (Leibbrandt) i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 io

: : : : : : : : : :

General (Bräutigam) Ostland (Kleist) Ukraine (Kinkelin) M uscovy (Knüpffer) Caucasus (Mendc) Culture (Scheidt) Settlement (Wetzel) Press (Zimmermann) Youth (Nickel) Women (Petmecky)

T H E O S T M I N IS T E R IU M

i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

: : : : : : : :

Internal Adm. Health Veterinary Social services Law Finance Science Trusteeship

M A IN D E P T . I l l E C O N O M IC M A IN G R O U P E C O N O M IC C O -O P E R A T IO N (Schlotterer) 1 i : Industry 3 : Labour 4 : Prices 5 : Transportation i --------------------------------1 2 : Forestry and Lum ­ ber [later separate M A IN G R O U P (Barth)]

1 In personal union with similar positions in Wirtschaftsstab Ost.

M A IN G R O U P FO O D A N D A G R I C U L T U R E (Riecke) 1 i 2 3 4

: : : :

Agrarian policy Production Seizure and Control Administration

88

The Setting

PT. I

returned to Germany to become head of the Eastern section of Rosenberg’s APA. In this capacity he acted as the Nazi Party’s ‘ foreign minister’ who dealt with the Ukrainian and other emigres in the Reich. Like Rosenberg, he became a zealous anti-Muscovite. Not a brilliant man, he was in some respects as fanatical but also as ineffective as Rosenberg. In one of his acid denunciations to Himmler, Berger later characterized Leibbrandt as a ‘ mixture of businessman, intellectual, and horse trader’ .1 A convinced Nazi, Leibbrandt was none the less persona non grata with the SS and Gestapo.12 Thus when Rosenberg appointed him head of the important Political Department of the new Eastern Ministry, Himmler promptly located in Leibbrandt a convenient target for attack against the entire OMi. If indeed Leibbrandt was later ferociously attacked for his ‘ pro-Ukrainian ’ stand by extremists, like Bormann and Erich Koch, the SS harassed him from another corner. Caught between these crossfires, Leibbrandt was finally forced to ‘ resign’ in the summer of 1943, spending the rest of the war in military service.3 Dr. Otto Bräutigam, another Ostministerium official, was Leibbrandt’s deputy and OMi representative at the Army High Command, a career diplomat with considerable understanding of Soviet affairs who favoured a relatively enlightened policy toward the Eastern peoples. The two economic ‘ main groups’ of the ministry were headed by Hans-Joachim Riecke, a Prussian civil servant, and Gustav Schlotterer, a director of the I.G . Farben concern. Professor Gerhard von Mende, a young Turcologist, became in effect the ‘ master protector’ of the non-Russian nationality spokesmen operating under German aegis.4 While the above occupied responsible positions in the formal structure of the ministry, there were others who played significant roles behind the scenes, usually by influencing Rosenberg personally. Arno Schickedanz, the foremost of this group, was a mediocre Baltic German who had impressed Rosenberg by his affinity for the latter’s views and by his personal loyalty. By the grace of Rosenberg, 1 Berger to Himmler, August 27, 1942, Document N G - 3 5 1 1 * . On Leibbrandt, see also his affidavit, Document Berger-55#, IM T , Case X I ; a bio­ graphical sketch, Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), June 1942, p. 25 ; Himmler to Berger, October 25, 1942, Document N O -7 3 7 * ; interviews G -6, G -8, G -12 . 2 This animosity appears to have had several roots. One of them was the general S A - S S conflict (Leibbrandt was an S A officer) ; another was the pall of suspicion which the Rockefeller grant cast upon him in the eyes of the Gestapo ; moreover, the latter accused him of protecting certain masonic activities in the Third Reich. 3 On Leibbrandt’s ouster and Berger’s role in the OMi, see below, pp. 170-4. 4 On Mende, see below, pp. 558-9.

CH. v

The Administration of the Occupied East

89

Schickedanz, a despicable intriguer, was in 1941 slated to become German overlord of the Caucasus. Lacking all training or knowledge of the problems at hand, he spent his days in petty and futile enterprises.1 Many of Rosenberg’s and Schickedanz’s views, especially on the Caucasus, had been fashioned under the influence of Alexander Nikuradze, a Georgian who had become a German citizen. He and Rosenberg had been friends since their common days as Russian exiles in Munich in the early 1920’s. An avid popularizer of Haushofer and Spengler, Nikuradze came to work at Rosenberg’s side as a backstage ‘ research director’. Paradoxically, this Georgian turned German Nazi was the proponent of a Grossraum conception which clashed with the programme which Rosenberg had in store for the East. None the less, his ideological outlook and his acquaint­ ance with the Caucasus made him an influential informant and adviser to Rosenberg and Schickedanz.12 The top personnel of the Ostministerium, because they were orthodox Party members, were hostile to the military, on the one hand, and, because they sprang for the most part from an SA milieu, they also resented the ascendancy of the SS. Many of the officials (for instance, Rosenberg, Leibbrandt, Mende, and Schicke­ danz) were V olksdeutsche [ethnic Germans] from the East. This group was, if not representative, at least relatively cohesive in outlook. However, a number of officials ‘ borrowed’ from other ministries immediately introduced an element of divided loyalty and some diversity in policy. Overwhelmingly, the ministry consisted of mediocre bureaucrats, with a sprinkling of competent specialists wedded to some ‘ special solution’.3 1 Rosenberg, Portrait, pp. 344-5 ; interviews G -6, G -9 ; Document N G 3 5 1 1 * ; Berger to Himmler, October 19, 1943, Document N O -6 21, N M T , xiii, 530 -1 ; Veli Kayum, interrogation, March 7, 19 4 7*, N A ; Albert R. Chandler, Rosenberg's N a z i M yth (Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1945), p. 30 ; Am o Schickedanz, Sozialparasitismus in Völkerleben (Leipzig : Lotus-Verlag, 1927) ; Jürgen Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen (Stuttgart : Steingrüben-Verlag, 1952), pp. 17, 110. 2 Interviews H -8 1, H -160, H -545. Nikuradze wrote under the pen-name of A . Sanders. See his Um die Gestaltung E u ro p a s; Osteuropa in kontinental­ europäischer Sch au , vol. i ; and K aukasien (all Munich : Hoheneichen-Verlag, 1938, 1942, 1944). 3 In addition to his continued direction of ‘ ideological training* of the Nazi Party, Rosenberg also supervised, at least in name, two other activities. T h e Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ER R ) was a special enterprise concerned with the spoliation of artistic and intellectual resources in occupied countries. In the East, its work ranged from confiscating libraries and shipping them to the Reich (as did various other agencies) to the employment of ‘ native* specialists on various propaganda and pseudo-scientific projects. On April 1, 1942, Hitler appointed Rosenberg head of the branches of the

90

The Setting

PT. I

C ivil Government While the head of the Rosenberg octopus remained in Berlin (changing its residency repeatedly as the result of Allied bombings), its subordinates who comprised the civil administration were in the occupied East. With its personnel nominally organized in a special ‘ Leadership Corps East’, 1 the administration actually remained divided into several distinct spheres. The occupied Soviet territory had been partitioned into three major categories: those absorbed into the territories of Western neighbours; the territories under civil administration; and the areas of military government. The Bialystok (Belostok) district of Western Belorussia, Polish until 1939, was attached to German East Prussia as of August 15, 1941, thus linking the latter with the Ukraine.2 Two areas of the Ukraine were likewise split o ff: the Western Ukraine, or Galicia, Polish-held until the war, was made a part of the German Govern­ ment-General of Poland ; 3 and a sizeable strip between the Dnestr and Bug Rivers, to the north of Odessa, was assigned to Rumania under the name of Transnistria.4 Nazi Party in the East. Aiming at the formation of a political ‘ community’ of all Germans in the occupied East, the N S D A P -O st organization had no functions among the indigenous population, which was deemed unworthy of participation in the Nazi movement. (See Documents N G -2 7 2 0 * ; N O -1 0 6 8 * ; 113 0 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, i o - i i ; ‘ N S D A P — Landesleitung Ukraine’ , Ostkartei, June 1943, Heft v, no. 22 ; Probleme des Ostraumes [Berlin : RM fdbO ., 1942], pp. 198 ff.) 1 T he Führerkorps Ost, established by a decree of Hitler at the end of 1941, was to consist of all officials assigned to civil administrative posts in the East. (See Rosenberg, appeal to Führerkorps Ost, December 18, 19 41, Dokumente der deutschen P o litik , op. cit. p. 15 1 ; RM fdbO ., Verordnungsblatt, 1942, no. 1, pp. 1-2 ; ‘ Erlass des Führers über Bildung und Abfindung des Verwaltungsführerkorps in den besetzten Ostgebieten’ , January 16, 1942, Document N G -i6 8 6 # ; Document 10 34-P S, N C A , iii, 695.) Actually, the organization remained an empty shell. 2 Hitler, ‘ Erlass des Führers über die vorläufige Verwaltung des Bezirks Bialystok’, August 15, 19 4 1, Document N G -3 4 8 o #. Both East Prussia and the Ukraine were ruled by Erich Koch. There were neither geographic nor ethnic reasons for placing this area under direct German rule. On German policy there, see ‘ Der Bezirk Bialystok’ , Ostland (Berlin), xxiii, no. 23 (December 1, 1942), pp. 403-8 ; Dr. Schikowsky, ‘ Die Einführung des deutschen Rechts in Bialystok’ , Zeitschrift fü r osteuropäisches Recht (Berlin), x (1943), 50-3. 3 Galicia became one of five provinces of the Government-General. Adminis­ tratively entirely separate from the so-called Greater (or old Soviet) Ukraine, it represented a distinct entity in terms of German policy as well. Only passing attention has been paid to its fate in this account. 4 I.e. ‘ Trans-Dnestr-L an d ’ . This area of about 10,000 square miles was assigned to Rumania by the German-Rumanian agreement of Tiraspol’ on August 30, 19 41. Hitler apparently considered this cession a reward for Rumanian partici­ pation in the war and compensation for the award of a large part of Transylvania to Hungary the previous year. Rumanian civil administration, headed by Professor Gheorghe Alexianu,was extremely lax and inefficient but also much more welcome to the population than the repressive system in the neighbouring German-held areas.

cm

. v

The Administration of the Occupied East

91

The larger part of the remaining territory remained under army control. Thus civil government — initially intended for the entire occupied East — actually came into existence in only a relatively limited area (see map, p. 92). Of the four huge regions which Rosenberg had envisaged, only two were established: Ostland and Ukraine, neither of which encompassed the entire intended area; the other two, Caucasus and Muscovy, were never formed.1 Each of the two satrapies, known as Reich Commissariats (Reichskommissariate), was headed by a Reich Commissar (Reichs­ kommissar), in theory directly responsible to Rosenberg, but in practice invested with far-reaching independence. Though the Ostministerium had sole legal authority to ‘ make policy’, both commissars often disregarded the directives from Berlin. As the following chart (p. 94) indicates, each Reich Commis­ sariat was subdivided into several General Commissariats (General­ bezirke or Generalkommissariate), each headed by a German official responsible to the Reich Commissar. While Ostland was a synthetic concoction containing four heterogeneous Generalbezirke (the three Baltic States and Belorussia), Ukraine was at least ethnically more uniform. Though intended to comprise all the pre-war Belorussian Republic as well as chunks of Great Russian territory, the General Commissariat for Belorussia never received the area east of the Berezina River from the military. Likewise, the Ukraine under civil rule never extended as far as Khar’k o v; the number of its Generalbezirke was increased on September 1, 1942, by the transfer to civilian government of the area east of the Dnepr as well as the northern approaches of the Crim ea; further aggrandizements of the Reich Commissariat Ukraine, prepared for early 1943, were frustrated by military events, which soon necessitated the re­ establishment of army authority even in areas where German civil authority had already been established.2 The Reichskommissare, an authoritative statement indicated, 1 The best summaries in English on Ostland and the Ukraine are the respective sections in the Royal Institute of International Affairs’ series, Survey of Inter­ national Affairs, Arnold and Veronica M . Toynbee, eds., Hitler's Europe (London : Oxford University Press, 1954) : ‘ The Ostland’ , by Sidney Lowery, pp. 568-75 ; and ‘ The Ukraine under German Occupation’ , by Clifton J. Child, pp. 632-48. While containing some significant errors and omissions, the surveys stand out from other writings on the subject by genuine research and insight. 2 The development of each Reichskommissariat is discussed in greater detail below. On Ostland, see pp. 18 2-225 \ on the Ukraine, pp. 130-6. In accordance with German custom, it will be convenient to refer to the Reich Commissariats Ostland and Ukraine as R K O and R K U , respectively. As early as M ay 2, 19 4 1, Rosenberg had agreed with Lammers on the basic hierarchy and nomenclature (calling his own position that of Protector-General, however). (Rosenberg, memorandum, May 2, 19 41, Document 10 25-P S , N M T , xii, 12 7 1-2 .)

6.

G E R M A N A D M I N I S T R A T I O N IN T H E O C C U P IE D E A S T

CH. v

The Administration of the Occupied East

93

‘ represented] the actual government’ of their provinces.1 They were responsible to the Ostminister alone. In all matters on which the latter had issued no decrees and on which he did not specifically reserve legislative power to himself, the Reichskommissare had full residual authority to issue laws. The Generalkommissare represented the intermediate level of German civil administration. They were comparable to the Prussian provinces but exceeded the latter in area and population. While possessing certain legislative authority on local matters, they ‘ conducted] the administration in Accordance with the general directives ’ handed down to them. In reality, they too had consider­ able latitude in the conduct of their affairs.2 Each General Commissariat was comprised of several districts (Kreisgebiete), administered by a District Commissar (Gebiets­ kommissar), the lowest-ranking official of the German administrative hierarchy; in addition, the larger cities were placed under City Commissars (Stadtkommissare), whose areas were exempt from the district administration. Here the greatest amount of work was carried out in contact with local officials. Each district had its sections on finance, health, labour recruitment, land apportionment, etc., representing a certain alteration of Soviet administrative practice on the basis of German experience. With virtually no exception, indigenous administrations func­ tioned only on the lowest level, at which no German network was established, although even here the indigenous officials were subject to ‘ hiring and firing’ by the Germans. Though practices varied from area to area, the prevalent pattern restricted ‘ native rule’ to villages or groups of villages forming one volost' (corresponding generally to the Soviet sel'sovet) ; in most cities, an indigenous administration functioned under the control of the German com­ mandant. The highest indigenous official — either for the raion or for the city — was the mayor, or Bürgermeister.3 1 T h e best German contemporary summary of the administrative structure and the various levels of authorities is Walter Labs, ‘ Die Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’ , Reich, Volksordnung, Lehensraum (Darmstadt), v (1943), 132-66. See also Document 1056-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 596-603 ; Bräutigam, memorandum, June 10, 19 41, Document 10 32-P S, N C A , Supplement A, 354-56 ; RM fdbO , Verordnungsblatt, i (1942), no. 1, p. 11. 2 Original planning had also foreseen the establishment of a third level, some­ what inferior to this one, under the title of Hauptkommissariat (Main Com­ missariat) for Armenia, the Kalmyk area, and perhaps East Belorussia. In practice, none were established. 3 In the areas under military government, several experiments were made by entrusting the administration of larger areas, comprising up to six raionsy to indigenous personnel under German supervision. This was true in 1942 in Eastern Belorussia and, as will be discussed below, in the Kuban’ and the Northern G .R .R .— H

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The Administration of the Occupied East

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The administrative structure showed little flexibility. It repre­ sented an attempt to make use of Soviet administrative units while introducing such changes as German goals required. It was planned and established before cognizance could be taken of the objective situation and the aspirations of the population in the occupied territories. Once established, the system of civil government remained virtually unchanged to the end. Under Army Rule Initially the entire occupied East was under Army rule. Even after the establishment of civil government, some portions of Belorussia and the Ukraine, as well as all the occupied areas of the Russian S F S R , the Crimea, and the Northern Caucasus, remained under Army jurisdiction throughout the war, partly because of the shifting of the front line, partly because of continued unrest in the area, and partly because of the growing conflict between the Army and the Rosenberg Ministry, in which the military resisted all efforts to transfer additional areas to civil government. The administrative structure evolved by the Army differed significantly from that in the Reich Commissariats.1 The territory under military control was divided into several Caucasus (see pp. 246, 299). In the fall of 1941 an experiment made by the Arm y (without authorization from Berlin) to establish Ukrainian rule on an oblast’ level in Zhitomir wras rapidly terminated. Finally, a ‘ Self-Governing District * under Bronislav Kaminskii was surreptitiously sanctioned by Arm y Group Centre (see p. 568). In the system of courts established on occupied soil, supreme authority, including the right of pardon, was vested by the Führer in the Ostminister. B y decree, German courts were established at the seat of each Reich Commissar and General Commissar, which acted in all cases involving German nationals and ethnic Germans. A network of summary police courts (Standgerichte) had far-reaching authority in dealing with indigenous offenders, as had the other police agencies (Secret Field Police, S D , and gendarmerie). In the course of time, the Gebiets­ kommissare received extensive powers of administrative punishment. A variety of justices of the peace, mediators, and jury systems were introduced in parts of Belorussia and the Ukraine, while in the Baltic areas indigenous courts had more extensive authority. On decrees issued for the areas of civil government, see Meyer, Recht, and the various official gazettes. On the structure of courts, see Meyer, ‘ Der Aufgabenbereich des R M fd bO .\ Probleme des Ostraumesy pp. 18 5 -7 ; Labs, op. cit. pp. 154-9 \ Documents N G - i 6 87# ; N G - i 8 79 # ; N G -3 0 5 9 *. See also Zeitschrift für osteuropäisches Recht, ix-xi (19 4 2-4 ) ; Nicholas Laskovsky, ‘ Practicing Law in the Occupied Ukraine*, American Slavic and East European Review (New York), April 1952, pp. 1 2 3 -3 7 ; ‘ Einheimische Schöffen in der Ukraine’ , V B -B , June 13, 1942 ; and the good summary, Otto Bräutigam, ‘ Über­ blick über die besetzten Ostgebiete* (Tübingen : Institut für Besatzungsfragen, 1954 ), PP- 61-6. 1 No systematic account of German military government in the East has yet been published. Much relevant material appears in the proceedings and documents submitted in the Nuremberg Trials, particularly Case X I I . In addition, this section draws on interviews G -7, G -1 5 , and G -19 .

96

The Setting

PT. I

distinct areas. Each of the three Army Groups (Heeresgruppe) at the Eastern front controlled a sizeable territory — an innovation in German military government, necessitated primarily by the vastness of the spaces to be occupied and the ensuing problems of logistics.1 Geographically the westernmost segments, the Army Group Rear Areas (Rückwärtige Heeresgebiete) covered most of the territory controlled by the military. Adjoining them to the east were the rear areas of each army — the traditional units of German military government on occupied soil — each under the Commander of the Army Rear Area (Rückwärtiges Armeegebiet, commonly known as ‘ Koriick’). Finally, to the east of the army areas was the combat zone, divided into corps areas (see chart, p. 97). In the combat zone, there were no special agencies for the establishment of military government. With few exceptions (notably in the Donbas, the Northern Caucasus, and before Leningrad in 1942), no regular system of indigenous government was brought into being in these relatively shallow strips close to the front lines. Here the combat troops were in complete control, and the corps commander was usually able to assert himself over competing SS and economic officials. Both the Army and Army Group Rear Areas were divided into jurisdictions of military commandants (regional kommandaturas [Feldkommendanturen, F K ] ; and urban kommandaturas [Ortskommendanturen, OK]), generally along lines of administrative divisions inherited from Soviet rule. These offices of military commandants constituted the network of German military government on the district level. In the Army Rear Areas, the F K ’s were directly under the Army’s command ; in the Army Group Rear Areas, they were grouped regionally, initially according to the territories assigned to German security divisions stationed in them. As the German armies began their retreat in early 1943, the areas of military government decreased in size. The withdrawal had two effects on the administrative structure. As early as February 1943 the eastern districts of the R K U , while retaining their civil ad­ ministration, were returned to military jurisdiction.12 As the Soviet advance continued, the territory of Army Groups Centre and South was reoccupied by the Red A rm y; hence in October-November 1943 their rear areas were abolished (Army Group North Rear Area continued in existence until the summer of 1944). 1 See also Hermann Teske, Die silbernen Spiegel (Heidelberg : Vowinckel, 1952) ; and Document 447-P S , T M W C , xxvi, 53-8. 2 Estonia, though a part of the civil-government R K O , remained under Arm y Group North Rear Area throughout because of the proximity of the front.

Civil Military

Government

Government

R E IC H C O M M IS S A R I A T

I A R M Y GRO UP NO RTH I — Arm y Group Rear Area

V — Army Rear Areas

I A R M Y GROUP C EN T R E I Arm y Group Rear Area

V - —Army Rear Areas

R E IC H C O M M IS S A R I A T [A R M Y G R O U P S O U T H U K R A IN E Arm y Group Rear Area

•Army Rear Areas

temporary : [ A R M Y G R O U P ‘ A ’ | Arm y Group Rear Area y ^ A rm y Rear Areas

(b) Chain of Command

8. S C H E M E O F G E R M A N M I L I T A R Y G O V E R N M E N T

Y ° Z ? ^ 9 UJOJ

O STLA N D

98

The Setting

PT. I

As German pre-invasion planning indicated, military government was not intended to fulfil any political functions. Though this arrangement, intended to be short-lived, lasted throughout the German occupation, the pattern of administration was not adjusted accordingly. In practice, each area commander was left free to act as he saw fit within the framework of certain broad directives from higher echelons. The purpose of military government was to assure peace and security behind the lines.1 This indeed was in line with the traditional German Army outlook which viewed the rear areas primarily through the prism of logistical problems. It was for this reason that the Quartermaster-General of the Army, General Wagner, had been one of the first actively to explore the problems of military administration before the invasion ; 2 and his office remained in charge of the network of kommandaturas on occupied soil. This fact accounted for two contradictory developments. It made for inefficiency and incongruities of administration; for instance, during the first 15 months of the war, the Army Group Rear Areas had military government sections (Section V II) which received orders from the Quartermaster-General, while the Army Groups themselves had no military government sections. Only in the latter part of the campaign were the administrative structure and chain of command somewhat expanded and institutionalized. On the other hand, the fortuitous subordination of military government to the Quartermaster-General’s Office contributed to the relatively more ‘ realistic’ policy which prevailed in some areas of military government, since General Wagner and his staff were not genuinely committed to the extreme measures dictated by the Führer and slavishly echoed by Keitel.3 In the last analysis each military commander and commandant had more leeway in the pursuit of his administrative task than did the civilian commissars. It is for this reason — and because of the absence of sufficiently complete evidence — that the policies carried out by the various military government units defy systematic analysis. They will be introduced to the extent that they affected the problems in German Ostpolitik examined in subsequent chapters. Authoritarian Anarchy In many respects developments in the two Reich Commissariats were indicative of the complexities and variations of German policy. Even here, Rosenberg and his lieutenants were by no means the 1 See Fochler-Hauke, op. cit. 2 See above, p. 22. 3 See also below, p. 507. Wagner participated in the anti-Hitler coup of July 20, 1944, and committed suicide after its failure.

CH. v

The Administration of the Occupied East

99

masters they had hoped to be. If the purpose behind the establish­ ment of a central Territorialministerium for the East had been to streamline its work by setting up a simple chain of command, the result was precisely the contrary. Side by side with the organs of civil government, there was an Army commandant (Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber), equivalent in rank to a divisional commander, in each Reich Commissariat. Though the military commandants continued to have some authority in the maintenance of public order and especially in the organization of military traffic, billeting, and prisoner-of-war affairs, they lost most of their authority in the areas of civil government in 1942-3, when the SS was given over-all responsibility for the conduct of anti­ partisan warfare; they regained some authority when the Army Group Rear Areas were dissolved and the civilian regions reverted to combat zones in 1943-4. A more important element of conflict with the civilian authorities was Himmler’s agencies. At first in a somewhat ambiguous status, the SS and police continuously expanded their functions, especially with the transfer to their domain of control over military operations behind the lines.1 At the seat of each Reich Commissar was a Higher SS and Police Leader (Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer, briefly H SSPF), and lower SS officials were attached to each General Commissariat. In addition, Himmler’s men had control over the local police and over the S D ’s special action teams (known in the areas of civil government as Sonderkommandos). Since the SS organs received orders directly from their control agencies in Berlin, conflicts inevitably arose between them and the civilian government authorities who, in vain, demanded the right to control the SS agencies. It was well and good for Deputy Minister Meyer to dismiss this conflict with the remark that the Ostministerium re­ mained the ‘ uniform legislator’ for the entire area. In practice, differences were often fought out more bluntly in the field than in the ministerial stuffiness of Berlin. The picture was further complicated by the participation of numerous other agencies, whose specific jurisdictions need not be detailed here. Foremost among these were the economic repre­ sentatives and various monopoly companies set up for the occupied areas.2 From 1942 on, the labour recruitment programme operated 1 This trend became more pronounced after the issuance of Hitler’s ‘ Weisung Nr. 2 6 ’ on August 18, 1942 (Document 4 7 7 -P S *). 2 On the economic organizations, see Chapters X V - X V I I , below. In addition, the German Railways, the Ministries of Armaments, Postal, Interior, and Finance Affairs, and the construction agency (Organisation Todt, or O T ), each had their functions.

IOO

The Setting

PT. I

without concern for the directives of the civil administration. Even though most of the interested agencies participated in the Ostministerium’s Central Planning Staff, the very presence of these numer­ ous units introduced confusion and heterogeneity into the already intricate administrative and political maze.

Some of the ensuing difficulties may be attributed to the ad hoc decisions caused by the unfavourable turn of the war. Many more were due to the domestic struggle for power in the Reich. And still others sprang from a lack of foresight, flexibility, and planning. The German policy-makers had three major alternatives as they embarked on the fantastic adventure of governing European Russia, a vast expanse of over one hundred million inhabitants, which had been honeycombed with Soviet and Communist Party agencies, where virtually every branch of public life and economy was in the hands of the state, and whose operation had required an uncounted bureaucracy. These alternatives w ere: self-government under general German supervision; participation by each interested German agency under the direction of a small co-ordinating and policy-making staff; or establishment of a territorial ministry seeking to guide every phase of activity in the occupied territory. It would have been easiest to permit the population to settle its own affairs as it saw fit and to help organize self-government, in which the role of the occupying power would be primarily to help, check and control, and to assure security in its own interest; and to prepare for the eventual recognition of the territory as an auto­ nomous state (or a number of states). But, given their outlook and aspirations, such a prospect was bound to be abhorrent to the political leadership of the Reich. The extensive administrative structure which developed was a logical consequence of its approach. If it was a foregone conclusion that the Reich had to maintain a thorough-going control in the East, some spokesmen in Berlin opposed the very idea of the Ostministerium.1 Arguing that it would make for duplication and friction without contributing competence or efficiency, they suggested the establishment of a small, highly competent staff of experts that could have become a 1 State Secretary Stuckart in the Ministry of the Interior, for instance, con­ sidered the O M i a serious mistake, ‘ an administrative hydrocephalitic\ (Herbert von Wolff, interrogation, Document N G -3Ö 24*.) Referring to the different views of Rosenberg, Himmler, and Stuckart on this point, Ambassador Grosskopf wrote Weizsäcker : ‘ Their views are widely divergent. Each agency allegedly attempts to obtain a decision of the Führer in its own favour/ (Grosskopf to Weizsäcker, June 4, 1941, Document N G -4 6 3 3 * . See also Document N O -5 i8 3 #.)

oh.

v

The Administration of the Occupied East

io i

policy-making brain-trust; the Führer would appoint a number of governors directly responsible to him — somewhat along the lines of the German Gauleiters; and each of the German ministries would ‘ merely’ extend its sphere of operation to the newly conquered soil. Rosenberg opposed this scheme from the outset, and Hitler sided with him. The East was to be kept in a separate category; a dispersal of executive authority was considered theoretically unten­ able, even if it prevailed in practice with a vengeance. Thus Berlin opted for a Territorialministerium which in theory bore the entire responsibility for the new East.1 Not that this decision was readily accepted by the competitors within the government. Rosenberg had good reason to complain in the spring of 1942, that one difficulty in his Ministry’s operation had been that the supreme authorities of the Reich naturally [sic /] did not wish to acknowledge such a novel ministry without protest. . . . This is where we have had a struggle for months. . . . We have refused to play messenger boy for their wishes. . . .2 Given the sheer size of the areas to be administered, the tasks of the German officials in the East were bound to be immeasurably greater than those of their opposite numbers in the Reich. The concept of Russia as the ‘ German India’ did not go so far as to permit extensive self-government. Even on the lowest levels, the commandant of a town, a German manager of a dairy trust, or an agricultural official was invested with far-reaching prerogatives and — more important in practice — had manifold opportunities to follow his own whims and to pursue a policy as arbitrary as his conscience and dexterity would permit.3 Under the circumstances, the quality and competence of personnel selected for duty in the East became a matter of the utmost importance. The Golden Pheasants As the Third Reich occupied country after country, large numbers of officials were called upon to assume positions in government and 1 This decision was fully in line with Nazi theory which insisted on total control of occupied areas as well as distinct forms of administration for the various components of the new Grossraum. See the important formulations in Werner Best, ‘ Grundfragen einer deutschen Grossraum-Verwaltung*, Festgabe für Heinrich Himmler (Darmstadt : Wittich, 1941), pp. 37, 49. 2 Rosenberg, speech to R K O staff, Riga, M ay 16, 1942*. 3 An official report summarized the situation after two years of occupation : ‘ Every representative of the military and civil agencies today unfortunately con­ ducts his own policy and thus exerts a more or less positive or negative influ­ ence. . . .* (Freitag to Riecke, June 28, 1943, Document 3000-PS, T M W C , xxxi, 463.) In its impact on the population in the East, the effect was overwhelmingly negative.

102

The Setting

PT. I

occupation agencies. The U .S.S.R . came last — and had to take the left-overs among German ‘ experts’. When ministries were summoned to supply their quotas o f civil servants for the new Führerkorps Ost, they saw in this call a welcome opportunity to rid themselves of personal enemies, obnoxious meddlers, and in­ competent chair-warmers.1 Furthermore, Rosenberg failed to get some of the best qualified men because they were serving with the Army or Foreign Office and were not released to his agency; other ‘ Russia experts’ studiously avoided the call to duty with the Ostministerium. The result was a ‘ colourful and accidental conglomeration of Gauleiters, Kreisleiters, Labour Front Officials, and a great number of SA leaders of all ranks, who assumed high positions in the civil administration after listening to a few introductory lectures delivered by Rosenberg’s staff at the Nazi training school at Crössinsee’ .2 As important as their lack of specialized knowledge and training was the very type of man used in the East. As a German professor complained during the war, there arose the huge staff of new masters who were ‘ Bürger without horizon or sophistication : the Spiesser [philistine] who likes to play H err’.3 A newspaper man touring the Ukraine with Rosenberg in 1943 was constrained to record in print that ‘ not all who reported for duty in the East were motivated by sheer idealism’, and that many strove merely for ‘ a carefree life without bothersome controls and with ample food rations’ .4 To the many Ost terms coined during the war, the sarcastic critics of the Rosenberg enterprise added a new type, the Ostniete. 5 Because of 1 See Rosenberg Conference, June 2 1, 19 41, Document 10 34-P S, N C A , iii, 693-5. In other instances, official agencies ‘ wished to exploit the opportunity to push their prot£g6s into higher, more promising, and better-paid positions’ . (Buchardt, p. 40.) 2 Rosenberg did not make extensive use of the Civil Service in his recruitment. Before the feuds among government agencies had become acute, Rosenberg toyed with the idea of dividing positions evenly among various Nazi and state agencies. Thus the men who were to fill the positions of General Commissars in the future Muscovy were to be : Moscow — Party official Sverdlovsk — Gauleiter Leningrad — S S officer Kirov — N S F K officer [National Socialist Tula — State Secretary Leadership Corps] G or’kii — S A officer Kazan’ — N S K K officer [National Socialist Ufa — Hitler Youth leader Motor Corps], (Dienststelle Rosenberg, ‘ Besetzte Ostgebiete’ , June 25, 19 41, Document 1036P S *.) 3 Professor Paul Thomson, ‘ Politischer Bericht’ , October 19, 1942, Document 30 3-P S, T M W C , xxv, 345. 4 V B -M , Ju ly 1 1 , 1943. 5 Niete — a failure, literally a blank in a lottery. See, for instance, HansJoachim Kausch, ‘ Bericht über die Reise’, June 26, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - n #, Y IV O , p. 15.

CH. v

The Administration of the Occupied East

103

their supercilious behaviour and their yellow-brown uniforms, the officials of the Ostministerium were pejoratively referred to as Goldfasanen — golden pheasants. In view of the manpower shortage (and mindful of the Indian example), Hitler wished to keep the number of German officials in the East ‘ as small as possible’.1 Yet, by conserving manpower, he was opening the door still further to unchecked abuse. Oblivious of this danger, he looked forward to the results of leadership experience in the E a st: A new type of man [he declared] will then take shape, real masters, whom, of course, it will be impossible to use in the West: viceroys.2 The Reich Commissars certainly lived up to these expectations. Koch was a true autocrat in the Ukraine. Lohse, the ruler of the Baltic States and Belorussia, was interested only ‘ in castles, hotels, and administrative palaces’. Once when Alfred Meyer, somewhat inebriated, chided Lohse for his independence of action, the latter (according to an eye-witness) shouted: ‘ I am not working for myself. I work so that my son, who has just been born, can some day put the hereditary ducal crown on his head.’ 3 Under the circumstances, it was natural that the civilian officials should become the object of hatred for both their subjects and their competitors. Quite aside from the motivation and ideology of the Nazi elite, the occupation experiment was crucially handicapped by the over-organized, inefficient administration, and by the low calibre of officialdom which for a few years were masters of the East. 1 Harry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 19 51), p. 118 ; H T T , pp. 15, 590. 2 Picker, op. cit. p. 196. Rosenberg echoed the same sentiments in declaring : ‘ A District Commissar who works [in the occupied areas] no longer thinks of leaving. He says : here is my kingdom ; this is where I want to work all my life/ (Rosenberg, speech, n.d. [probably August 1942], Document 17 0 -U S S R , T M W C , xxxix, 424.) 3 Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), pp. 159-64.

PART II

PEO PLES AND PO LIC IES

C H A P T E R VI

G E R M A N Y AND THE U K R A IN E : (i) £ m i g r £ s AND N A T I O N A L I S T S T he Führer [let me know] . . . that these £migr£s spoil the people and that he would have had them shot if he had had a clear picture of their attitude.— K och to Rosenberg, March 1943

The Ukraine in German Plans O f all the Eastern areas conquered by the Third Reich, the Ukraine was by far the most important. It was the largest Soviet republic which the Germans occupied in full, and it was held longer than the parts of Great Russia which they were able to seize. As a provider of food and manpower, it was second to none. In formulating its policy, Berlin had a generation of German political thinking to fall back on. If until the first World War Germany, like most other countries, had looked upon the Ukraine as ‘ Little Russia’ — more of a curious ethnographic phenomenon than an autonomous political force — the collapse of the tsarist empire led the Central Powers to make the Ukraine an object of special attention. Brest-Litovsk and the formation of a Ukrainian govern­ ment in the spring of 1918 under the protection of German guns high-lighted the new orientation, whose protagonists ranged from military leaders like General Ludendorff to scholars like Paul Rohrbach. Some saw it as the easternmost member of a new Germancontrolled M itteleuropa; others, as a source of grain; still others, as a godsend to the traditional power combinations of the continent; a German-Ukrainian alliance was a natural bulwark both against Russia and against Poland, which arose from the ruins of the war with the formerly Austrian-held western part of the Ukraine, Galicia, as a part of its territory. When at the end of the Civil War the Russian, or ‘ Greater’, Ukraine was reintegrated into the Soviet state, Galicia became a centre of Ukrainian political life — both a locus of resentments against Poland and a minor ‘ Piedmont’ which Ukrainian nationalists strove to convert into an active base of operations for the ‘ liberation’ of the Soviet Ukraine. Certain Western Ukrainians banked on German support in their plans for reunification and independence, and their cause, in turn, seemed to provide Berlin with a handle against both Warsaw and Moscow.

io 8

Peoples and Policies

PT. II

So convenient a community of interest existed in this dual respect that some politicians in Berlin sighed with relief: if there had been no Ukraine, Germany would have had to invent one.1 Little wonder that Rosenberg adopted this concept which so well matched his anti-Muscovite and anti-Polish mood. As early as 1927 he wrote of the ‘ natural hostility between Ukrainians and Poles’ , which would stand Germany in good stead. Once we have understood [he continued] that the elimination of the Polish State is the first demand of Germany, an alliance between Kiev and Berlin and the creation of a common border become a necessity of people and state for a future German policy.12 Both for the ‘ elimination of the Polish State’ in 1939 and for the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the premise remained the same. The goals of Germany’s ‘ Ukrainian policy’ were astutely expressed in a critical recapitulation during the war : ‘ Our policy’, Dr. Otto Bräutigam wrote, ‘ [was intended to make] the Ukraine a counterweight against mighty Russia, against Poland and the Balkans, and a bridge to the Caucasus.’ 3 Thus in Rosenberg’s blueprints for the German occupation in the spring of 1941, the Ukraine was naturally ordained to become the strongest link in the chain of dependencies around Moscow, and the fertile and profitable granary of the Reich. Its separation from Russia and its close linking with Germany were axiomatic. In his very first memorandum, reviewing his historical thesis, Rosenberg argued that Kiev had been the centre of the Varangian state — thence the strongly Nordic and superior features of the Ukrainian people. Their national distinctiveness, he added with a barb at Russian historiography, formed a ‘ fairly unbroken tradition ’ down to our days. The Nazi programme was to further this feeling of national distinctiveness ‘ up to the possible establishment of a 1 If the Ukraine and the Ukrainians are treated here as homogeneous, there is no intent to imply that all Ukrainians, or even all £migr£s, espoused such a proGerman orientation. Some major political groups abroad, particularly the ex­ tremists in the Western Ukraine, did subscribe to it, however. It is intended to imply neither that Ukrainian nationalism was a German invention nor that it had strong popular roots outside of Galicia. As used hereafter, ‘ extreme nationalism’ with regard to the constituent nationalities of the U .S .S .R . refers to an outlook, emotional state, and political programme that place the attainment of national sovereignty above all else and are commonly accompanied by intolerance for other nationalities and for fellow-nationals who .do not share such an outlook. 2 Alfred Rosenberg, Der Zukunftsweg einer deutschen Aussenpolitik (Munich : F. Eher, 1927), p. 97. See also Hermann Rauschning, The Revolution of Nihilism (New York : Longmans, Green, 1939), pp. 2 1 5 - 1 7 . 3 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung*, October 25, 1942, Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 340.

Germany and the Ukraine

CH. VI

109

separate state, with the aim of . . . always keeping Moscow in check and of securing the Greater German Lebensraum against the East’. 1 Then, as in subsequent drafts, he called for the expansion of the Ukraine eastward at the expense of the Russian area.12 A few days later, the contours of the political purpose became clearer. In view of its importance for Germany, ‘ an independent Ukrainian State, with all its consequences, [was to emerge] in close [and] indissoluble alliance with the German Reich’ .3 The fullest exposition of Rosenberg’s views came early in May when he drafted instructions for the future German ruler of the Ukraine. Retreating slightly from his goal of immediate statehood (probably because he sensed the looming opposition to his scheme), Rosenberg now envisaged two phases. During the war, the Ukraine was to provide the Reich with food and raw materials; thereafter, ‘ a free Ukrainian State in closest alliance with the Greater German Reich’ would assure German influence in the East. Clearly labouring under the influence of his own and Leibbrandt’s Ukrainian advisers, he continued : To attain these goals, one problem pregnant with psychological potential must be attacked as rapidly as possible: Ukrainian writers, scholars, and politicians must be put to work for a revival of Ukrainian historical consciousness, so as to overcome what Bolshevik-Jewish pressure has destroyed in Ukrainian Volkstum in these years. A new ‘ great University’ in Kiev, technical academies, extensive German lecture tours, and the publication of Ukrainian literature in large quantities were integral parts of this programme, as were the eventual elimination of the Russian language and the intensive propagation of German culture and language. From the point of view of broader politics, Rosenberg envisaged close co-operation between the Ukraine and a German-controlled Caucasus — another bulwark of the anti-Muscovite belt and the second key province to German prosperity — as well as the extension of the Ukraine to the Volga and the Crimea. The tasks of a German Reichskommissar in the Ukraine [Rosenberg summarized] can be of world-historic impact. If we succeed in marshalling all political, psychological, and cultural means to create a free Ukrainian State from L ’vov to Saratov, then the century-old nightmare which the German people has been subjected to by the Russian Empire, will be 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. i April 2, 19 41, Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 5 5 0 -1. 2 See map, p. n o . 3 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’ [April 7, 19 41], Document ioi 8-PS#, pp. 29-30.

G.R.R.— I

no

Peoples and Policies

PT. II

broken ; then Germany will not be threatened by an overseas blockade and the supply of food and raw materials will be secured for all time to come.1 Two days before the attack, Rosenberg, repeating his earlier plan almost point for point, made one vital addition. How strong, sceptics might wonder, was Ukrainian national consciousness ? Even Rosenberg himself did not wish to exaggerate its extent. ‘ I

9.

T H E R O SEN BER G P L A N : T H E W A L L ARO U N D M U SC O V Y

believe’, he declared, ‘ that we can safely assume this consciousness to exist in the broad masses of the people in only a latent and apathetic [dumpf] form ; but even if it should exist in a smaller degree than we believe likely . . . then especially we must make every effort finally to revive this Ukrainian national self-conscious­ ness. ’ Such nationalism, Rosenberg continued, was the best hand­ maiden of German interests in the East. In the past threatened by Moscow, ‘ the Ukraine will henceforth always be dependent on the 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar in der Ukraine’ , M ay 7, 1941, Document 10 28-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 567-73. See also Document 1030-PS, T M W C , xxvi, 577-8.

CH. vi

Germany and the Ukraine

111

protection of another great power, and this can of course be only Germany’.1 The thesis represented a symbiosis of Western Ukrainian nationalism aspiring to the creation of a state from the Carpathians to the Volga, and German interests (as Rosenberg saw them) which would set up a Ukraine dependent on the German prop. In terms of power politics, the concept of a Ukrainian satellite was particularly well tailored to fit the ambitions of the Reich, rather than of any other third power. The Ostministerium was not basing its calculations on the assumption of overwhelming popular desire for an independent Ukraine ; not only did it deny a priori such a will, but it recognized the need for its systematic and skilful stimulation. Rosenberg’s catering to the Ukraine was based on the premise that the war would be short. Indeed, in military terms it did not matter if the Ukrainians themselves were not overwhelmingly nationalist or if the Russians would be antagonized by Rosenberg’s ‘ partition policy’ . Reality could be ignored for the sake of political objectives if, and only if, Germany was bound to win the war in any event. The Emigres The Russian Revolution and the ensuing Civil War had thrust abroad hundreds of thousands of political exiles from the Russian empire. The many intellectuals among them included representatives of every political orientation. If much of their writing and internecine strife remained a peculiar ghostland of nostalgia and unreality, they none the less represented a tool which opponents of the Soviet regime could, and did, employ for their own ends. Until 1941 the Great Russian groups figured less in the political work sponsored by other states than the non-Russian separatists, who had support from various quarters. Most important of these perhaps was the ‘ Pro­ metheus’ group, centred in Warsaw with contacts in France, Turkey, and Japan. Nazi Germany maintained contact primarily with Ukrainian separatists and with some Caucasian emigres. Their employment raised a peculiar problem for National Socialism. After settling in Munich in 1919, Rosenberg had come into close and continuous contact with various emigres. Prince BermondtAvalov, General Biskupskii, Hetman Skoropadskii, Alexander Nikuradze, Russians, Ukrainians, Caucasians — all pinned their hopes on a counter-revolution in Soviet Russia and along with Rosen­ berg hatched optimistic plans for an early return. It was here that the cause of the non-Russian separatists was successfully presented 1 Rosenberg, speech, June 20, 19 4 1, Document I0 58-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 618-20.

112

Peoples and Policies

PT. II

to Rosenberg. Himself an emigre from the non-Russian peri­ pheries of the tsarist empire, Rosenberg easily absorbed the romantic visions that were being spun. As far back as 1921 Hitler had quarrelled with him on this point. In 1943 Hitler recalled how he had earlier tried to convince his faithful theoretician of the futility of the emigres’ efforts, and he added with a mixture of ire and irony that Rosenberg still ‘ had his political underworld shop, which dates from his own emigre period’ .1 Hitler had no use for the emigres or the cause they represented. To this, Rosenberg could never reconcile himself. Their disdain for the emigres from Russia had not prevented the Nazis from accepting substantial contributions to their own cause, both in ideas and in money. But the bulk of the anti-Soviet emi­ gration was ‘ reactionary’, and the Third Reich could scarcely give support to their schemes for restoring a Russian tsar. On the other hand, Berlin feared (not entirely without reason) the penetration of exile groups by Soviet agents.12 As the war approached, some Nazis came to feel that the overt use of refugees might backfire, and that the emigres were out of touch with the mood of the people back home. Finally, a mighty Germany which discouraged even Japanese support in the campaign it expected to win within a few months, and which had prepared a programme of uniquely outspoken enslave­ ment, saw no need to use the services of superannuated handymen. German policy toward the emigres thus reflected the same dualism as in other questions of Ostpolitik. Actually at least four agencies made intensive use of political refugees : Admiral Canaris’ A bw ehr; the Nazi Party, through Rosenberg’s A P A ; the Gestapo ; and the Propaganda Ministry. Official hostility was reconciled with this practice by an artificial formula according to which emigres could be used in Berlin but, once the invasion began, would not be admitted to the occupied territories. Thus in mid-June the police agencies were instructed to prevent all refugees from moving towards the territories to be occupied by the Reich.3 Rosenberg willingly 1 ‘ Besprechung des Führers mit Generalfeldmarschall Keitel und General Zeitzler’ , June 8, 1943, Journal of Modern History (Chicago), xxiii, no. 1 (March

1950, 65. 2 On German suspicions, see, e.g.y Document N G -3 6 2 6 *. On Soviet infiltra­ tion of monarchist exile groups, see Ryszard Wraga, ‘ Trest*, Vozrozhdenie (Paris), vii (January 195°)» H 4 - 35 3 T his decision was transmitted through the network of national Vertrauens­ stellen, refugee aid committees which on the surface engaged in relief, legal aid, and welfare work, although actually established by and for the Gestapo. In addition, all suspect £migr£s were to be arrested when the invasion began. (Chef Sipo und S D , ‘ Massnahmen gegen die aus dem grossrussischen Raum stam­ menden Emigranten*, June 18, 19 4 1, Document 15 7 3 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 345-7.)

CH. VI

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co-operated as far as the Great Russians were concerned : for them he had no use.1 The Foreign Office on its part transmitted orders that no emigres were to be enlisted in the German armed forces as volunteers, ‘ neither those with an all-Russian nor those with separatist-nationalist outlook’. Those who applied were to be treated ‘ in a friendly but dilatory manner’ . Our attitude toward Russian emigres [the instructions read] is governed by political considerations which make it seem undesirable for this group of persons to take any prominent part. This is to be treated in confidence.2 On September 29, 1941, and again on January 6, 1942, the Ostministerium confirmed the ban on emigres entering the occupied territory.3 This despite the fact that hundreds, if not thousands, of emigres were at that very moment on occupied Soviet soil. To the more fanatical emigres, the war represented the long-awaited opportunity for ‘ action’, a realization of their cherished hopes of ‘ liberating’ their fatherland. Russians, Ukrainians, and Belo­ russians alike managed to get into German-held territory — often on assignment from German agencies, sometimes without the latter’s official sanction. Only in the summer of 1942 did Berlin officially sanction the use in the East of emigres who were politically ‘ reliable ’ and who had acquired German citizenship. Even they were barred from combat duty. The following summer Hitler again forbade their use as officers.4 In reality, military formations, propaganda teams, military and civil government in occupied territory, as well as intelligence projects, continued to use refugees in considerable numbers as translators, 1 Rosenberg informed the Gestapo and Foreign Office that Russian £migr£s in Warsaw were already preparing a government-in-exile, and General Biskupskii in Berlin had begun recruiting cadres for a future Russia. (Grosskopf, report, June 19, 19 41, Döcument N G -49 90 *.) T he case is the more piquant as Biskupskii headed the Russian Vertrauensstelle in Berlin and had helped finance the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter. Though thoroughly pro-German and pro-Nazi, his group soon became disappointed because (as Biskupskii told Hassell in mid-July) ‘ the war is not being fought against Bolshevism but against the Russian people*. This did not prevent it from continuing collaboration with the Nazis while seeking support among the German military. ( The Von Hassell Diaries [Garden City : Doubleday, 1947], pp. 200-1 ; S. L . Voitsekhovskii, ‘ Tak i bylo*, Chasovoi [Brussels], 1948, no. 279, pp. 1 1 - 1 2 , and no. 280, pp. 22-4.) 2 Auswärtiges Amt, conference of June 30, 19 4 1, Document N G -4 6 5 2 * . Six weeks later, the Ostministerium was quoted as holding, with the Fü h rers sanction, that 6migr£s were to be barred from the East. ‘ In particular is to be prevented the entry of persons who are politically typed by membership in or influence by £migr£ organizations. . . .* (O K W /W F S t/L (IV ), ‘ Einreise von Emigranten in die neu besetzten Gebiete*, August 1 1, 19 4 1.*) 3 Document Occ E 3 -5 9 *, Y IV O . 4 Interviews G - i , G -1 9 ; and O K W /W FSt/Q u , directive, June 27, 1942, O K W /15 6 *, C R S ; Hitler, ‘ Weisung Nr. 46*, August 18, 1942, Document N O 1666*. The order of July 1943 followed Hitler’s conference of June 8, 1943.

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announcers, minor officials, and consultants. Just what their status was, no one seemed able to tell.1 Thus another gap developed between official policy and practice. It was nowhere more strikingly illustrated than in the case of the Ukrainian emigres. Abwehr and O U N Ever since 1918, one of the principal Ukrainians supported by the German government had been Hetman Paul Skoropadskii, who had headed a reactionary Ukrainian regime under the German occupation in 1918. Hitler, who never attributed special importance to either Ukrainians or emigres, recounted his early disagreements with Rosenberg on the use of Skoropadskii. ‘ Rosenberg, what do you promise yourself from this man ? ’ ‘ Well, he organizes the revolution.’ ‘ So I said [Hitler continued] for that, he would have to be in Russia. The people who make a revolution must be within their country. . . .’ Events have shown that all this was a phantom. The emigres have accomplished nothing at all. The Nazis increasingly looked upon the ex-Hetman as a senile figurehead and shifted their support to more extremist groups.2 Reduced to inaction, the emigres from the Soviet Ukraine found friends among the ‘ anti-parliamentary’ Ukrainian parties in Galicia. Having adopted uncompromisingly revolutionary methods and a programme palatable to the Nazis, the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) had become the centre of anti-Polish activities in Galicia. Under Colonel Eugene Konovalets the OUN and its predecessor organizations had cultivated ties with German intelligence from as far back as 1921. After the assassination of Konovalets in 1938 by a Soviet agent, leadership of the OUN had passed to Colonel Andrew M el’nyk, who continued the co-operation with Berlin.3 1 See Himmler to Berger, October 25, 1942, Document N G -7 3 7 * . 2 Jo u rn a l o f M odern H istory , op, cit. p. 65. See also Rauschning, op. cit. p. 133. The Nazis continued to pay the honorarium granted him by Field-Marshal Hindenburg. (N S R , p. 145 ; Schickedanz to Lammers, December 20, 1939, Document N G -3 0 5 5 *.) Skoropadskii remained probably the most unequivocally pro-German of Ukrainian spokesmen but failed to find any substantial following. See also below, p. 622. 3 On Ukrainian nationalist groups, see John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian N ational ismy 19 3 9 - 19 4 5 (New York : Columbia University Press, 1955), a pioneer study which surveys much of the material presented in this chapter from a different vantage point. Among Ukrainian nationalist sources, see especially Mykola Lebed’ , U P A : I. Nimets*ka okupatsiia U krainy (n.p. : Presovo Biuro U H V R , 1946) ; and G. Polykarpenko, O U N p id ch a s druhoi svitovoi viiny [Winnipeg, 1952]. This section is also based on interviews G -6, G -8, G -22 .

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The decisive role in the activization of OUN forces on the German side was played by the Abwehr. Admiral Canaris, its clever little chief, saw in them welcome and active helpers and, unlike the Nazi APA, cared little about the details of the O U N ’s pro­ gramme. In 1939, as the prospects of war against Poland increased, the Ukrainian collaborators were brought into action. First they appeared in the short-lived Carpatho-Ukrainian government of March 1939.1 Then the Abwehr secretly organized a regiment of OUN members, known clandestinely as Bergbauernhilfe (BBH, literally Mountain-Peasants’ Help).2 Holding open the possibility of a future ‘ Ukrainian state’ , the Abwehr groomed the Ukrainian unit both for action as a legion and for a revolt behind enemy lines in case of a German attack on Poland.3 When the invasion came, one of the possibilities initially considered involved establishing a nominally ‘ independent’ Galicia under German auspices. In this case, Canaris noted in his diary, I would have to make appropriate preparations with the Ukrainians so that, should this alternative become real, the Mel’nyk Organization (OUN) can produce an uprising which would aim at the annihilation of the Jews and Poles.4 1 See Ribbentrop, memorandum on M sgr Voloshyn, M ay 6, 1939, Document N G -3 2 9 2 * ; Michael Winch, Republic fo r a D ay (London : Hale, 1939) ; and W . E. D. Allen, The Ukraine (London : Cambridge University Press, 1940). On Canaris, see Ian Colvin, M aster S p y (New York : M cGraw -H ill, 1952) ; and Karl Abshagen, Canaris , Patriot und Weltbürger (Stuttgart : Union Deutscher Verlag, 1949)* 2 Fritz Arlt, 4Die Entwicklung der politischen Vertretung der Völker des Ostens’, M S * , pp. 7-8 ; Lahousen, testimony, IM T , November 30, 1945, T M W C , ii, 478 ; Oleh Lysiak, ed., B ro d y (Munich : Vydannia bratstva kol. voiakiv 1 U D U N A , 1951), p. 17. 3 Paul W . Blackstock, ‘ German Covert Political Warfare against the U .S .S .R .’ , M S * (Washington, 1953), ch. iv, pp. 28-30 ; O KW /Abwehr II/i, ‘ Besprechung mit dem Ukrainischen Militärstab’ , June 13, 1939, O K W /74*, C R S . In addition to Poland, the Ukrainian group prepared to engage in propaganda, intelligence, and, if necessary, sabotage through their followers in Canada, the United States, and Britain. (Document N G -3 0 5 5 * ; O K W /Abw ehr II/i, ‘ Ergebnis der Be­ sprechung mit den II-Referenten der Asten V I I I and X V I I ’ , Ju ly 3, 1939, O K W / 74*, C R S .) T h e two key men in this enterprise, as in 19 41, were Colonel Roman Sushko and Captain Richard (‘ R yko’) Yary. See also Paul Leverkuehn, German M ilita ry Intelligence (New York : Praeger, 1954), pp. 158-66. Even before the Polish campaign of 1939, Schickedanz, in a lengthy memorandum which fore­ shadowed much of the 1941 territorial programme of the Rosenberg office, gave his estimate of the O U N : ‘ That organization, which can best be compared with the Croat Ustashi group, is probably still slated by the O K W to carry out certain intelligence tasks in case of conflict with Poland. It may be suited for that purpose but is entirely unfit to lead a political operation to seize hold of the population’ (Schickedanz to Lammers, June 15, 1939, Document 136 5-P S *). 4 Canaris, ‘ Kriegstagebuchaufzeichnung über die Konferenz im Führerzug in Ilnau am 12 .9 .19 3 9 ’ , Document 30 47-P S, publ. in Abshagen, op. cit. p. 208. See also Lahousen, testimony, T M W C , ii, 448, 478, and iii, 21.

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The idea was abandoned because Galicia was turned over to the U .S.S.R . While thus depriving the Ukrainian extremists of their mass support, the partition of Poland also increased their eagerness to fight for the liberation of their homeland.1 Another effect of the defeat of Poland was the release from jail of a number of Ukrainian nationalists. The most prominent of these was Stephen Bandera, a young chauvinist arrested in the wake of the assassination of Polish Minister of the Interior Bronislaw Pieracki in 1934. Against the more sedate and somewhat gradualist M el’nyk, Bandera quickly rallied the restless younger generation in the OUN. After a conflict both of personalities and tactics, the OUN split into two distinct and mutually hostile organizations — one led by M el’nyk, the other by Bandera (and generally referred to as the OUN/M and the OUN/B). Berlin deplored the split, which came at a time when the Abwehr supposedly had the OUN firmly in hand. Henceforth German support was divided between the two, with the M el’nyk group considered more pro-German and the Bandera wing more capable but also more impetuous and adventurist.12 As prepara­ tions got under way for the attack on the U .S.S.R ., the Ukrainian groups were again enlisted — this time to provide the personnel for two army regiments, ‘ Nightingale’ and ‘ Roland’, which were to render the Germans valuable services once the invasion had begun.3 1 A t the same time, the special status which the Ukrainian nationalists enjoyed in German eyes was reflected in the following order issued at the end of the Polish campaign : ‘ T he flow of refugees from the east to the west across the line of demarcation [with the U .S .S .R .] is to be stopped immediately, with the exception of Volksdeutsche elements and Ukrainian activists’ . (FH Q and O K W /W F A , ‘ Directive No. 4*, September 25, 1939, U .S . Department of State, Documents on German Foreign P o licy, series D, viii [Washington : Government Printing Office, 1954], I 35*) 2 Interviews G -6, G -2 2 ; N S R , p. 145 ; Document Occ E 4 -5 * , Y IV O . 3 See Armstrong, op. cit.y ch. ii and pp. 7 3 -5 ; Liubomir Ortyns’kyi, ‘ Druzhyny ukrai'ns’kykh natsionalistiv’ , Visti B ratstva K o l. V oiakiv 1 U D U N A (Munich), iii, no. 6-7, pp. 4 ff. ; Arlt, op. cit. p. A9. ‘ Nightingale’ fought on the German side near L ’vov and advanced to Vinnitsa early in the war ; ‘ Roland’ was to advance from Rumania to Yassy [Ia§i] and the Odessa area. In addition, the Germantrained O U N groups were to engage in subversive work. According to the responsible German intelligence officer : It was pointed out in the order that for the purpose of delivering a lightning blow against the Soviet Union, Abwehr II . . . must use its agents for kindling national antagonism among the people of the Soviet Union. . . . In carrying out the above-mentioned instructions of Keitel and Jodi, I contacted Ukrainian National Socialists who were in the German Intelligence Service and other members of the nationalist fascist groups. . . . Instructions were given by me personally to the leaders of the Ukrainian Nationalists, M el’nyk [Code Name ‘ Consul I ’] and Bandera [Code Name ‘ Consul I I ’] to organize . . . demonstra-

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Other Collaborators In addition to the channel which the Abwehr had established to the Galician separatists, Rosenberg’s APA had for many years maintained another German-Ukrainian political bond, monitored by Leibbrandt. Not limiting his contacts to fascists, Leibbrandt kept in active touch with the heads of the Ukrainian National Rada (UNR) in Poland, which considered itself the legitimate successor to the Petliura government of 1919. Likewise, after the capture of Warsaw by German troops, Leibbrandt had ‘ rescued’ some former leaders of the Prometheus movement, which had been opposed by many Nazis because of its pro-Polish orientation.1 He likewise maintained contact with Dmytro Doroshenko, a prominent historian who was the spiritus rector behind many of Skoporadskii’s moves. Unwilling to bank on any one political group, Leibbrandt prepared for the day when they might all be of use.2 More important than any of these, however, were two of Leibbrandt’s close Ukrainian associates, both of whom suffered a strange fate. The first, Alexander Sevriuk, had been a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference in February 1918. Though reluctant to put his ideas on paper, he served as an influential private adviser to Leibbrandt. He died in what was reported to be a railway accident in December 1941. Rumours then and later had it that Sevriuk was actually a Soviet agent and had been liquidated by the S S ; the available evidence, however, does not bear out these allegations.3 Leibbrandt’s other confidant was Peter Kozhevnikov. After coming to Germany in the mid-’twenties, he had kept close to Rosenberg. In spite of repeated warnings from German intelligence and from Ukrainians like Doroshenko, Leibbrandt accepted him as an expert on labour and tions in the Ukraine in order to disrupt the immediate rear of the Soviet armies. . . . Apart from this, a special military unit was trained for subversive activities on Soviet territory. . . . (Stolze, affidavit, Document U S S R - 2 3 1 , T M W C , vii, 272-3.) 1 In return for a spurious promise not to engage in politics, the Prometheus per­ sonnel received subsidies and research assignments in Prague. (Interviews G -6, G -8.) 2 In 1941, Rosenberg and Canaris agreed that none of the Ukrainian groups deserved sole ‘ recognition’ , let alone a mandate for political leadership after ‘ liberation’ of their home soil. (Document 10 39-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 585 ; inter­ views G -6, G -14 .) 3 Interviews G -6, G - 1 4 *> Einsatzgruppen Report, July 22, 19 4 1* . For an analysis of the spy story (presented rather unreliably by Gunther Reinhardt, ‘ Hitler Aide — Stalin S p y ’ , Plain Talk [New York], iii [August 1940], 24-8), see Il’ko Borshchak, ‘ Neumovimyi zakid’ , UkraYna (Paris), 19 5 1, vi, 454-60. According to the version in a German-controlled Ukrainian paper, he was one of thirty-eight victims, who could not be individually identified after the catastrophe. (‘ Pamiati Oleksandra Sevriuka, 4 II 1893— 27 X I I 1 9 4 1 ’ , Krakivs'ki Visti [Cracow], no. 456 [January 18, 1942].)

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social affairs in the Ukraine. Actually he played a far more important role in advising the Rosenberg staff. Even after the war, Leibbrandt spoke of Kozhevnikov as the ‘ most intelligent and most talented ’ among the Ukrainians. Late in 1942, the Gestapo had Kozhevnikov put in a concentration camp. While proof is lacking, there have been allegations that he was indeed a Soviet agent.1 Even more significant in their long-range influence were the activities of the Ukrainian collaborators in German-occupied Poland. With German consent, a Ukrainian Central Committee was estab­ lished there in April 1942 under the noted geographer, Dr. Volodymyr Kubiovych. Not initially intended to play a political role, his committee none the less exercised a magnetic influence as the only legitimate organization on ‘ native soil ’ and later played a substantial role in the formation of Ukrainian army units fighting with the Germ ans; at the same time, it could legitimately bring grievances to the attention of the German authorities.2 Most of these groups were amply forewarned of the coming invasion. The Abwehr arranged an agreement with the OUN/B, conceding it far-reaching freedom of political propaganda in return for military and clandestine collaboration.3 Early in April 1941, the U N R and Prometheus elements in Warsaw, tipped off by Sevriuk, began toying with plans for a Ukrainian government.4 And the OUN/M, some ten days before the invasion, sent Hitler a detailed document in which it described itself as the proper national­ ist and authoritarian regime in the Ukraine on which the Reich could rely as the ‘ sole counterweight’ to Muscovite and Jewish aspirations.5 1 Interviews G -6, G -8, G -14 . On his background, see Volodymyr Martynets', Ukrains’ke p idp illia v id U V O do O U N [Winnipeg], 1949, pp. 325-9. O f the various other Ukrainian £migr£s at work in Germany, the most important was probably Dr. Ivan Mirchuk, who had worked closely with the A P A even before the war began. He and Dr. Zeno Kuzela made themselves spokesmen for the concept of historic ‘ German-Ukrainian friendship ’ and the portrayal of the Ukraine as a ‘ Western * country (as contrasted with Russia and Poland). See Mirtschuk, ‘ Die Ukraine und die Juden', Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), January 1942, pp. 4-6 ; Mirtschuk, ‘ Die Ukraine — Mittlerin westlicher K ultur', and Kuziela, ‘ Die ukrainische Volkskultur', D ie Aktion (Berlin), 19 41, ii, 445-58 ; Document Occ E 4 - 1 7 * , Y IV O . 2 Interviews G -8, G -22. The best source for its activities is the newspaper, K ra k iv s 'k i Visti (Cracow), 19 4 1-4 . See also below, p. 622. 3 Armstrong, op. cit. p. 75. 4 Leibbrandt, ‘ Aktennotiz' on conference with Roman Smal-Stocki, April 9, 19 4 1, Document I0 22 -P S *. 5 Kubiovych and Omelchenko, ‘ Denkschrift betreffend die Bedeutung der Ukraine für die Neuordnung Europas', June 1 1 , 19 41, E A P 99/454*, C R S . It was indicative of the atmosphere created by the Rosenberg and Canaris staffs that these Ukrainian groups were informed of the impending attack months in advance, while the German Ambassador to Moscow, von der Schulenburg, never had official forewarning.

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Thus at the beginning of the German invasion a number of Ukrainian emigres had gained key positions in the German orbit — all of them strong nationalists, many of them pro-fascist but includ­ ing also a sprinkling of opportunists and previously anti-German spokesmen. Whatever their programmes — and they differed considerably — the Ukrainian collaborators hoped to turn the war to serve their own ends.1 The Rosenberg and Canaris agencies expected to employ them for the promotion of German aims. The Himmler-Bormann orientation had little use for them, even on a limited scale. Sooner or later, the marriage of convenience was bound to result in serious domestic discord. U vov : The First Crisis Within four days after the invasion began, the Wehrmacht had advanced to the vicinity of L ’vov, the capital of Eastern Galicia. Here Ukrainian nationalists staged a revolt which was savagely re­ pressed by the retreating Red Army and N K V D . During the following days of chaos, it became obvious to the Germans that Bandera’s followers, including those in the ‘ Nightingale’ regiment, were dis­ playing considerable initiative, conducting purges and pogroms.2 Actually on the morning of June 22, the OUN/B in Cracow had formed a ‘ Ukrainian National Committee’ with the co-operation of some other Nationalists and had sent its men into Eastern Galicia.3 On June 30 it staged a sudden and unexpected coup in L ’vov. Just as the responsible Army intelligence officer, Professor Hans Koch, an old friend of the Ukrainian nationalist cause, had arranged for a conference to establish a city government in L ’vov, he was taken to a rally, carefully staged in advance, where the OUN/B assembly proclaimed a ‘ Ukrainian State’. A move unforeseen both by the Abwehr and by Rosenberg’s men, the proclamation was intended to present the Germans as well as the rival Ukrainian parties with a fait accompli.4 1 As a leading O U N official stated after the war, 4Only Germany was preparing for war with the U .S .S .R ., and therefore it was a natural and thoroughly reasonable phenomenon for the Ukrainian people to see therein [the path to] its own state­ hood/ (Lebed', op . cit. p. 13.) 2 Official German entry into L 'v o v was dated June 30. For some information on Banderovite excesses against Russians, Poles, and Jews, as well as members of the rival O U N /M , see W . Diewerge, ed., Deutsche Soldaten sehen die Sowjetunion (Berlin : Limpert, 1941), p. 45 ; Einsatzgruppen Reports, July 16, August 9, and 28, 1 9 4 1 * ; Petro Yarovyi, ‘ K desiatoi godovshchine velikoi provokatsii’ , S o tsialisticheskii Vestnik (New York), xxxi (19 51), 138-49. 3 Interviews G -8, G -22. See also Armstrong, op. cit. p. 76 ; and Documents Occ E -7, 8, 9*, Y IV O . 4 The text of the proclamation is available in two versions. One announces the formation of the State and a Ukrainian National-Revolutionary Army, and

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Professor Koch and like-minded Germans evidently failed to grasp the full meaning of the proclamation or the extent to which it ran counter to Hitler’s plans. They considered the OUN/B move ‘ premature and awkward’, but hardly dangerous ; they ‘ would have waited until we reached Kiev to proclaim Ukrainian statehood’ .1 The reaction of other German agencies, however, was bound to be more decidedly negative. The consistent enemies of Ukrainian statehood saw evidence of insubordination, and even ‘ pro-Ukrainians ’ on Rosenberg’s staff could not but question the reliability of Bandera under such circumstances. German forces in L ’vov were still meagre, and confusion reigned. Thus for almost a week the new ‘ government’ was allowed to operate under the leadership of Yaroslav Stetsko, Bandera’s loyal lieutenant.2 So little did the SD know of the enterprise that it gave the wrong composition of the ‘ government’ and even misspelled the participants’ names in its confused wires to Berlin. In response to the coup, the Einsatzgruppe created a Ukrainian political self-government for the city as a counterweight to the Pandera [jfr /] group. Further measures against it, especially against Pandera himself, are in preparation.3 Realizing that a direct challenge to German supremacy was involved, the SD on July 2 began arresting Bandera’s followers. On July 4 a German city commandant was installed, and the next day the Stetsko government was dispersed; on July 12 Stetsko was arrested; Bandera himself was taken from Cracow to Berlin and, though treated with deference, was kept in jail.4 Meanwhile the German authorities were busy establishing concludes with, ‘ Long Live the Leader of the O U N , Stephen Bandera ! ’ (‘ Akt proholoshennia Ukra'ins’koi Derzhavy’ , L ’vov, June 30, 1941 ; photostat supplied by Dr. John A. Armstrong ; Petro Mirchuk, A k t vidnovlennia ukrains’koi derzhavnosti [New York : U H V R , 1952], p. 32.) T he other includes the phrase, ‘ Glory to the heroic German Arm y and its Führer, Adolf Hitler !’ (Facsimile from ZJiovkivs'k i Visti, ‘ organ of the O U N ’ , reproduced in N arodnaia P ra vd a [Paris], no. 17 -18 , pp. 10 -11.) For Hans Koch’s thoroughly ‘ pro-Ukrainian’ views, see his briefing to Arm y Group South, June 15, 19 41, summarized in Roman Ilnytzkyj, ‘ Deutschland und die Ukraine, 1 9 3 4 - 1 9 4 5 ’ , vol. I (Munich : Osteuropa-Institut,

1955). MS*, pp. 53-57-

1 Interview G -20. 2 It engaged in extensive propaganda activities. It also established a Council of Elders, with the participation of some veteran politicians, and persuaded the venerated head of the Uniate Church, Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi, to issue a pastoral letter backing the coup. (Mirchuk, op. cit. p. 33 ; Armstrong, op. cit. pp. 79-81.) His subsequent pastoral letter, however, was cleared with the Germans and contained no more references to the O U N ‘ government’ . (Einsatzgruppen Reports, Ju ly 5 and 14, 19 4 1*.) 3 Einsatzgruppen Report, July 2, 19 4 1*. 4 Einsatzgruppen Reports, Ju ly 3-5, 10 -12 , 24, 1 9 4 1 * ; Mirchuk, op. cit. p. 38 ; interviews G -6, G -20.

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‘ order’ in Eastern Galicia. Pro-Stetsko mayors and chiefs of police were replaced ; gatherings suspected of OUN/B sympathies were dispersed. Though Hans Koch and others sought in vain to obtain a ‘ retraction ’ of the L ’vov proclamation from Bandera and Stetsko, official German policy had written finis to its dealings with the OUN/B. After initially leaving open the question of Galicia’s disposition, Hitler decided in mid-July to detach it from the future territory of the Ostministerium and to assign it to the GovernmentGeneral of Poland.1 Leibbrandt and others protested that this meant splitting the Ukraine and thus causing ‘ a great disappointment among the Ukrainians and a gap between the German political leadership and the Ukrainians’,12 but to no avail. On August 1 Galicia became a province of German-ruled Poland. With the OUN/B officially eliminated, the M el’nyk organization re-emerged as the principal spokesman for Ukrainian nationalism on the German side. By various measures and memoranda it strove to ingratiate itself with the German authorities.3 But the tolerance which the Army accorded it was short-lived.4 The waves of arrests which in July-September 1941 affected primarily Bandera’s followers, later that year spread equally to the OUN/M, especially when its activities in Kiev, Zhitomir, and elsewhere seemed to presage the resumption of an independent course.5 In vain did its leaders 1 Bormann’s protocol of July 16 even indicated that ‘ old-Austrian Galicia will become Reich territory\ (Document 2 2 1 - L , T M W C , xxxviii, 87.) Prior to this decision, the Governor of Poland, Dr. Hans Frank, and the Rosenberg office had both vied for this area. See also Grosskopf to Weizsäcker, June 4, 19 41, Document N G -4 7 7 2 * . 2 Leibbrandt, ‘ Grenzen zwischen Ostgalizien und dem Reichskommissariat Ukraine*, July 23, 1941, Document I0 46-P S*. 3 M el’nyk addressed an ‘ ultimatum* to the Stetsko regime even before its dispersal. Late in June, his followers joined with General Omelianovych-Pavlenko (the last commander of the Ukrainian Republic’s army in 19 19 -2 0 ) to form a ‘ Military-Historical Council’ in Cracow, obviously intended to serve as a broad political front. Backed by Colonel Bisanz, who had led the Ukrainian legion under the Habsburgs in World W ar I and now headed the Ukrainian section in the Government-General, M el’nyk sent Hitler a lengthy declaration of loyalty, asking ‘ for the honour to be permitted to . . . march shoulder to shoulder with our liberators, the German Wehrmacht*. (Einsatzgruppen Report, July 7, 19 4 1*.) On Ju ly 10, the O U N /M and other nationalist groups pledged Hitler their ‘ most loyal obedience* in building a Europe ‘ free of Jews, Bolsheviks, and plutocrats*. (Ibid. Ju ly 15, 1 9 4 1 * ) 4 As early as July 2, the ‘ Roland* regiment was instructed by the O K W to prevent the nationalists from engaging in partisan propaganda. (A O K 1 1, Ic, ‘ Unternehmen Roland — K .u .K . Rittm. Ja r y ’ , July 9, 19 4 1* , 35 774 /3#, C R S.) 5 Both O U N /B and O U N /M personnel succeeded in entering the Soviet Ukraine in the wake of the German troops. German arrests of Bandera’s followers were stepped up after the assassination by O U N /B men of two leading O U N /M officials, Mykola Stsibors’kyi and Omelian Senik-Hrybovs’kyi, in Zhitomir on August 30, 19 41. In Kiev, the pro-M el’nyk ‘ National Rada’ was dispersed on

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appeal to Hitler for a change of policy.1 In Berlin the anti-nationalist mood spread, and even Rosenberg, the ‘ pro-Ukrainian’, ordered in mid-November: In order to guarantee an undisturbed administrative reconstruction, it will be necessary to take all expedient steps for obstructing the activities of overly hasty elements from the Western Ukraine in the Reich Com­ missariat [Ukraine] and for preventing their representatives from entering it from the Government-General.2 The separatists, only recently privileged, promptly became pursued pariahs. The nationalist leaders had wished to collaborate with the Germans, on their own terms. Although claiming to speak for the Ukrainian people, they met initially with little popular support in the Soviet Ukraine. They formed partisan units but refrained from attacking the Germans. Their leaders were put in German jails and concentration camps ; yet when released in 1944, they again rallied to the Nazi side to resume the struggle against Moscow.3 In all likelihood, the prompt eruption of the crisis in L ’vov and its aftermath precipitated the inevitable. Short of utter surrender, not even the pliable OUN groups could survive in a climate of German officialdom whose majority espoused the Untermensch thesis and whose confused minority floundered between a ‘ pro-Ukrainian ’ outlook and a stern belief in ‘ Germany first’ . November 17. (Armstrong, op, cit. pp. 94-7, 108 ; interviews G -6, G -20, G -22 ; Hans Koch, ‘ Bericht Nr. 1 0 ’ , October 5, 19 4 1, Document 0 5 3 -P S #, p. 3 ; Ein­ satzkommando C 5, ‘ Betr. : O U N ’ , November 25, 19 41, Document U S S R - 14*.) 1 Letter to Hitler by Colonel M ernyk, Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi, General Omelianovych-Pavlenko, and others, January 14, 1942, E A P 99/454*, C R S . 2 RM fdbO ., ‘ Richtlinien für die der Ukraine gegenüber zu verfolgende Politik’ [November 22, 19 4 1]*. 3 See below, pp. 620-5.

C HAP TER VII

G E R M A N Y A N D T H E U K R A IN E : (2 ) T H E U K R A IN IA N F U L C R U M Our goal is a free Ukrainian state.— A lfred Rosenberg There is no Ukraine. We must remember that we are the Herrenvolk.— E rich K och

Goring, Bormann, and Koch T h e struggle for control, which had been waged in relative quiet and secrecy up to the beginning of the invasion, flared up within the Nazi elite as soon as it came time to name a Reich Commissar for the Ukraine. Rosenberg’s original plan had been to assign Erich Koch to Moscow and either Arno Schickedanz or Herbert Backe to the Ukraine.1 At the Hitler conference of Ju ly 16, 1941, Göring’s intercession checkmated these plans. Arguing that Koch was ‘ the personality with the strongest initiative and the best preparation for the jo b ’, Goring suggested that he be given either the Baltic States or the Ukraine.2 Goring was concerned primarily with the Four-Year Plan. The first months of the war, during which he took an active interest in Eastern affairs, clarified his stand as one of indiscriminate extremism. ‘ The best thing’, he was reported to have told a friend, ‘ would be to kill all men in the Ukraine over fifteen years of age and then to send in the SS stallions’.3 In a talk with Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, Goring expressed views which corresponded closely to the prognosis of his economic staff: This year between twenty and thirty million persons will die in Russia of hunger. Perhaps it is well that it should be so, for certain nations must be decimated. But even if it were not, nothing can be done about it. It is obvious that if humanity is condemned to die of hunger, the last to die will be our two [German and Italian] peoples.4 By the end of 1941, however, Göring’s influence had begun to wane, in part because of the failure of the Four-Year Plan to restore 1 Rosenberg, appendix to ‘ Denkschrift N r. 2 ’, April 7, 19 4 1, Document 10 19 PS, T M W C , xxvi, 555-6. 2 [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk’, July 16, 19 41, Document 2 2 1 -L , T M W C , xxxviii, 90. 3 [Herwarth,] ‘ Germany and the Occupation of Russia’, M S * , p. 1 1. 4 Conference of November 24-27, 19 4 1, Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers (London : Odhams, 1948), pp. 464-5 ; interview G -2. 12 3

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economic plenty, in part because of the continued setbacks suffered by his Luftwaffe. By 1943-4 he was scarcely a serious contender in the struggle of the Nazi diadochi.1 Göring’s primary contribution to Ostpolitik was the successful nomination of Koch. Rosenberg, aware that Koch was a ‘ favourite of Goring, who thought highly of his economic abilities’,2 was justifiably afraid that Koch would disobey his orders; he told the conference that ‘ Koch, moreover, had already expressed himself in this sense’.3 But Goring came to Koch’s defence: Rosenberg could not expect to lead his commissars by the hand, for ‘ these people have to work very independently’. This was precisely what Rosenberg feared. Hitler finally intervened to decide that Koch should be assigned to the Ukraine, which ‘ for the next three years is undoubtedly the most important region’. Bormann, hostile to Rosenberg and an old friend of Koch, had deftly let Goring carry the ball. Only in the protocol which was submitted to Hitler, did Bormann interject a sly com­ ment : ‘ It became evident at several points that Rosenberg was quite friendly with the Ukrainians [für die Ukrainer sehr viel übrig hat] ’.4 Koch thus emerged as the protege of the extremists. The man who became known as the ‘ brown tsar’ of the Ukraine had begun his career as a petty railroad official in the Rhineland. There during the occupation early in the ’twenties he participated in anti-French activities which at that time brought the Communists and National 1 Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, The Last D ays o f H itler (New York : Macmillan, 1947), PP- 14 -1 5 ; Peter Kleist, Zwischen H itler und Stalin (Bonn : AthenäumVerlag, 1950), pp. 189-90 ; Rudolf Semmler, Goebbels (London : Westhouse, 1947 ), P- 97 2 Rosenberg, P ortrait, p. 308. 3 There is no doubt that Rosenberg sensed K och’s future orientation ; his selection of Koch for the Moscow post was symptomatic of the different standards he sought to apply in the various areas of the U .S .S .R . The following exchange at the Nuremberg Trials is of interest in this connection : Rosenberg : I knew Koch had a very excitable temperament, going from one extreme to the other and hard to keep steady, and therefore not reliable in carrying out a steady policy. M r. Dodd : . . . Koch is the man whom you blame to a very great extent for many of the terrible things that happened under your ministry in the Ukraine, isn’t he ? . . . [Quoting from Rosenberg’s memorandum of April 7.] ‘ In addition it will eventually become necessary to occupy . . . Moscow. It will be aimed at the suppression of any Russian and Bolshevik resistance and will necessitate an absolutely ruthless person. . . .’ Did you recommend Koch for that job as a particularly ruthless man in April of 1941, yes or no ? Rosenberg : Yes. . . . (Session of April 17, 1946, T M W C , vi, 250-2.) See also Rosenberg, P o rtrait , P- 303. 4 Document 2 2 1 - L , T M W C , xxxviii, 87-9 1.

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Socialists together in a common front. By 1926, he had become a Nazi militant.1 Koch belonged to the revolutionary wing of the Nazi Party, and like Goring and Bormann, his protectors, he kept something of his anti-capitalist outlook to the end.12 During the depression days, Koch became one of the main Nazi spokesmen for a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Rauschning later recalled how Koch, ‘ one of Gregor Strasser’s men’, had been ‘ a keen supporter of a [pro-] Russian policy’.3 Even on the eve of the war, Koch confided in Carl Burckhardt, the League of Nations’ High Commissioner for Danzig, that ‘ he, Koch, would have become a fanatic Communist had he not encountered Hitler’ .4 As Gauleiter of East Prussia, ‘ Erik the Red’ (as he was at times called in Nazi circles) acquired a reputation for efficiency and initiative. Soon he was absorbed in manifold schemes aimed at improving its economy and services. Koch’s ‘ pro-Communist’ ideas evaporated; and he became involved in routine activities sup­ plemented by a variety of ‘ private’ transactions. He is perhaps best characterized by Gisevius, a hostile but convincing character witness: A first-rate demagogue, a bold adventurer, at home in the highest and the lowest walks of life, he towered above his fellow leaders. He had a vigorous imagination and was always ready to pass on — in whispers and under the seal of absolute secrecy — utterly fantastic stories. He had established the Erich Koch Institute and cheerfully watered the stock again and again, whenever he needed money for his palaces or similar amusements. And there was the Indian maharajah whom Koch 1 Berger to Himmler, July 24, 1942, Document N O -9 0 2#. There is no satisfactory biography of Koch. 2 This espousal of ‘ German Socialism’ as opposed to capitalism was reflected in his attitude after he became ruler of the Ukraine. See his ‘ Der kommende Einsatz im Osten’ (speech at the opening of the Königsberg fair), Deutsche Post aus dem Osten, November 19 4 1, pp. 27-8. 3 Hermann Rauschning, The Revolution o f N ihilism (New York : Longmans, Green, 1939), p. 258. See also his The Voice o f Destruction (New York : Putnam, 1940), pp. 128-30. . 4 Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, Es geschah in Deutschland (Tübingen : Wunder­ lich, 19 5 1), pp. 164-5. 1° his own book, A ufbau im Osten (Breslau : Kern, 1934), Koch’s views are frankly expressed, He rejects the role of ‘ highly cultured esthetes’ in politics and opposes ‘ complications of thought’ . Nazism is to him, ‘ like the myth of Prussianism, based not on knowledge but on conception’ . It is the ‘ young socialist peoples’ , not the capitalist West, who will make the future. He traces German-Russian co-operation down from Peter III to the ‘ antiVersailles’ combination in 1919. He had no doubt that it would have a ‘ happy end’, for ‘ all the powers between the Rhine and the Pacific Ocean . . . have a community of interests in the great problems which concern them’ . (Pp. 24-5, 40, n o , 1 12 , 114 .)

G.R.R.— K

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was trying to persuade to place his legendary treasures in gold at the disposal of the Reichsbank, at no interest. . . . And then there was the horde of bankrupt entrepreneurs, pathetic inventors, and insolent plun­ derers who operated under Koch’s protection and smuggled the most fantastic industrial projects into the official programme of the Four-Year Plan.1 During the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact Koch again spun his ideas of continental blocs.2 As late as January 1941 he wrote that ‘ the treaty with Russia again opens to [East Prussia, Koch’s own domain] a tremendous hinterland, which reaches into the raw material areas of Southern Russia’.3 When the attack on the U .S.S.R . started, Koch seemed reluctant to accept the job which was proffered him.4 Koch’s position was fortified by his relations with Martin Bormann. Although Bormann operated so skilfully that his role at times defies documentary substantiation, German officials inter­ viewed on the subject concur that Bormann played a most important role as intermediary between Koch and Hitler. Technically, he was Koch’s superior in the Party hierarchy. As Gauleiter, Koch was accountable to Bormann, who directed the Party Chancellery. Koch was above all a Party official, and even in the Ukraine he asked his associates to address him as Gauleiter rather than Reichskom­ missar. More important, Bormann and Koch were close friends and addressed each other per Du rather than by the more formal Sie. Bormann, in turn, became more and more Hitler’s confidant. The link was easily forged. Nominally Rosenberg’s subordinate in the chain of command of the Ostministerium, Koch could and did go over his head by appealing through Bormann directly to the Führer.5 In some respects Koch’s outlook had changed markedly since the days of Nazi Sturm und Drang* After he became Reich Com­ missar his desire to prove that he had shed all vestiges of his proSoviet attitude led him to an equally determined espousal of its 1 Hans-Bemd Gisevius, To the B itter E n d (Boston : Houghton, Mifflin, 1947), pp. 200-1. 2 Erich Kordt, Wahn und W irklichkeit (Stuttgart : Union Deutsche Verlags­ gesellschaft, 1948), p. 2 17 . 3 Erich Koch, ‘ Die Aufgabe Ostpreussens bei der Neuordnung des Deutschen Ostens*, Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), xii, 24. 4 T he usually well-informed Hasso von Etzdorf heard that, when informed of his assignment to the Ukraine, Koch ‘ expressed himself as being very unenthusiastic about his new task, which he would carry out only so long as it served the FourYear Plan*. (Document N G -2 7 7 5 * .) 5 Rosenberg, Po rtrait, p. 3 0 8 ; interviews G -2, G -6, G - 1 1 , G -1 4 ; Kaltenbrunner, interrogation, September 21, 1945, N C A , supplement B, p. 1297 ; Kleist, op . cit. pp. 18 1, 187-9. 6 Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit (Munich : Hermann Rinn, 1953), p. 325.

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opposite. Now he rejected with indignation Rosenberg’s ‘ romantic’ and ‘ naive’ schemes. His attitude amounted to this: (1) the German people is the Herrenvolk ; (2) the Eastern peoples, Ukrain­ ians and all the others, are destined to serve their natural masters; (3) it is Germany’s right and duty to exploit the E a st; (4) the com­ plete control of the conquered East requires the destruction of the native intelligentsia and of all elements — Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, and others — who might potentially constitute a threat to German domination. Koch approached his job with complete lack of concern for appearances. After the capture of Kiev, the Army invited Koch to take over the Reichskommissariat and to establish his seat in the capital of the Ukraine. Koch ostentatiously sent a junior official to take over records and offices there, while he established headquarters not in Kiev, the traditional centre of Ukrainian culture, but in provincial Rovno.1 Even while serving as Reich Commissar, Koch continued to officiate as Gauleiter of East Prussia, where he spent a considerable part of his time. In order to provide a link between his two empires — East Prussia and the Ukraine — Goring persuaded Hitler to ‘ assign various parts of the Baltenland \i.e. Ostland], such as the Bialystok forests, to East Prussia’ .12 Thus from 1941 to 1944 Erich Koch was ruler of an area stretching from the Baltic to the Black Seas; a peculiar man indeed to realize the ancient dreams of the Polish kings. The First Retreat Like Bormann and Goring, Himmler was also arguing behind the scenes that ‘ the entire Ukrainian intelligentsia must be deci­ mated’ . Like the skimmed fat at the top of a pot of bouillon, Himmler explained, there was a thin intellectual layer on the surface of the Ukrainian people; do away with it, and the leaderless mass would become an obedient and helpless herd.3 Such an attitude — and the concomitant Untermensch propaganda — set the atmosphere for Koch’s reign. The policy to which Rosenberg had committed himself was rejected within a month after the outbreak of war. Three moves showed that official Berlin had no intention of catering to the Ukrainians. In July the decision was made to award ‘ Transnistria’ 1 He did not want to act like ‘ the German emperors who went to Rome to be crowned*. (Interview G -20.) 2 Document 2 2 1 - L , T M W C , xxxviii, 89. On Bialystok see above, p. 90. 3 Eberhard Taubert, ‘ Die deutsche Ostpolitik’, M S * , p. 12.

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to Rumania; on August i Galicia was transferred to the Govern­ ment-General ; and the nationalist outbreak in L ’vov was followed by the German ban on Ukrainian political activities.1 Some of the leading officials of the Ostministerium continued to argue for a ‘ free Ukrainian state’ and protested against the new ‘ partition’ of the Ukraine.2 But in the late summer and fall of 1941, Rosenberg’s original outlook found little expression.3 A little over­ whelmed by the hostility which he had encountered from his fellowministers and from the Führer, Rosenberg tried to soft-pedal his own thesis.4 In addressing the German press he justified his new tactics by declaring that unfortunately the evidence on occupied soil had shown the Ukrainians, as much as the Russians, to have been ‘ biologically beheaded ’ by the Soviet regime; ‘ having been de­ prived of their best forces’, they could scarcely be of much use against Muscovy.5 Most significant was Rosenberg’s attitude at his next meeting with Hitler, at the end of September. To his own staff, in which the ‘ pro-nationalities’ line was accepted as axiomatic, he declared that as a result of his strenuous efforts, Hitler had ‘ after bitter struggles’ 1 See above, pp. 90 and 122 ; also ‘ Leonardo Sim oni’ [Count Lanza], Berlino> ambasciata d ’ Italia (Rome : Migliaresi, 1946), p. 251. 2 Interviews G -6, G -14 . See also Leibbrandt’s memoranda, ‘ Odessa als ukrainischer Hafen ’ and ‘ Grenzen zwischen Ostgalizien und dem Reichskom­ missariat Ukraine’ , July [23 ?], 19 4 1, Documents 10 4 4 -P S * and 10 46 -P S*. Dr. Bräutigam, who at that time accepted the pro-Ukrainian policy, noted in his diary after the conference of Ju ly 16, 19 4 1, about the separation of Galicia : ‘ A hard blow for the Ukrainians and an unbelievable overture to our policy in the Ukraine! . . .’ Moreover, he felt that ‘ it will be hard for the civil administration to rule a land without having full control over the police and the economy ! ’ (Bräutigam, ‘ D iary’ * [entry for July 16, 1941], L C .) 3 Occasionally his concept found its way into the German press, where con­ fusion reigned over the official attitude towards the Ukraine. Ostland argued, for instance, that Germany’s sacrifices must not be in vain and that therefore the Reich must not leave the East ‘ to the free play of chaotic forces’ . Instead, in good Rosenberg vein, ‘ the political goal must be to make Moscow impotent’ , and hence the Ukraine must be ‘ drawn from the strangling subordination to its stronger neighbours into the fructifying atmosphere of Europe’ . (Ostland [Berlin], xxii, no. 23 [December 1, 1941], p. 401.) In actual practice, many of the Arm y com­ manders in the Ukraine did adopt something of the Rosenberg attitude. Thus the Commander of the Rear Area of Arm y Group South, General Karl von Rocques, ordered that wherever acts of sabotage could not be traced back to actual culprits, they were to be attributed ‘ not to Ukrainians but to Jews and Russians, against whom retaliatory measures are therefore to be applied’ . (Bfh. Rueckw. Heeresgebiet Süd, order, August 16, 1941, Document N O K W -16 9 1* .) 4 As early as M ay 8, he had changed the wording on his draft instructions for the Ukraine to forestall possible opposition. In ink he inserted ‘ at a moment still to be determined’ when speaking of Ukrainian statehood, and changed his dis­ cussion of a ‘ German-Ukrainian alliance* from an ‘ unobjectionable’ to a ‘ tenable proposition at some future point’ . (Document 1028-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 568-9.) 5 Rosenberg, remarks at reception of the German press, November 18, 1941, D W /A A 28*, C R S .

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sanctioned the ‘ Ukrainian policy, albeit in reserved form’ .1 In fact — and Rosenberg indicated as much in his own record of the conference — the Ostminister had back-tracked rapidly as soon as Hitler told him that, according to his information, the Ukrainians did not want to be separated from the Russians at all. Rosenberg now advocated policy by postponement. For the moment, he told the Führer, nothing should be said about the future disposition of the Ukraine; even his favourite project, a new Ukrainian university in Kiev, was to be abandoned ‘ in view of the destruction wrought by the Bolsheviks’ . Though continuing to argue that Ukrainians were to have priority over Russians, he went so far as to declare that under the present conditions there is no German interest in artificially breeding a new [Ukrainian] intelligentsia, which by impetuous activity might disturb the quiet economic construction in the next few years.2 At times he spoke like a Bormann or a Himmler, seemingly enjoying the cheap pose of ‘ realism’ and practical resoluteness which he adopted.3 The official directives for the policy to be pursued in the Ukraine, while urging the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war, religious toleration, and the promotion of the Ukrainian language ‘ under assured censorship’, also rashly declared : Ukrainian complaints about the transfer of certain areas of the Ukraine to the administration of the Government-General and of Rumania, or similar complaints, are to be repulsed with the comment that the Ukraine has been saved by German blood and that Germany therefore reserves the right to dispose of the areas in accordance with general political requirements.4 During the first six months of the campaign, Rosenberg’s tendency was to stay aloof from Hitler. His adjutant, Dr. Werner Koeppen, managed only rarely to speak with the Führer. Rosenberg himself never wanted to ‘ bother’ Hitler. Rather than take things into his own hands at the highest level, he let them slide. After the one conference in late September he did not see Hitler again until mid-December. 1 Bräutigam, ‘ D iary’ * (entry for September 29, 1941), L C . 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über eine Besprechung beim Führer am 29. September 1 9 4 1 ’ , October 2, 1941, E A P 9 9 /110 *, C R S . 3 ‘ Regardless of the future treatment of the various nationalities, there are three tasks before us today : the expansion and security of the Reich ; the economic independence of Germany and Europe ; the Germanization of certain regions and the creation of an area for the settlement of 15-20 million Germans.’ (RM fdbO ., ‘ Niederschrift über die Chefbesprechung am 30 .10 .19 41 überdie Landesplanung im Ostraum’ , November 15, 1941, Document 15 39 -P S *.) 4 RM fdbO ., ‘ Richtlinien für die der Ukraine gegenüber zu verfolgende Politik’ [November 22, 19 4 1]*.

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This visit was prompted in part by Rosenberg’s desire to obtain the Führer’s approval for a speech he was about to deliver at the Sportpalast. Its importance was due both to its being the first public statement on Eastern policy, and to its timing, at the very height of the crisis at the Eastern front. Rosenberg’s draft was replete with references aimed at concili­ ating the Untermensch advocates. He was even prepared to declare that the past six months had shown that the Soviet population had identified itself with the Bolshevik regime and could not be counted upon as Germany’s ally.1 In his absorption in bureaucracy and back-biting, Rosenberg had failed to sense the crisis that had arisen. At one pole, Hitler told him on December 14 that this was no time to appeal to any Easterners to co-operate ‘ because they might later base a legal claim on this [address]’ . Rosenberg had to promise ‘ to compose the relevant paragraphs of [his] speech more carefully’.123 At the other pole, now that the rosy hopes of the first months had frozen in the snow before Moscow, both the Army and the Propa­ ganda Ministry objected to his speech. It took an emergency inter­ vention by Goebbels on the eve of the speech to prevent Rosenberg from stating publicly that ‘ a resurrection of Russia was not to be considered’ . The Army pragmatists protested : The Ostministerium apparently did not have the right idea of the situation at the front. . . . At any rate, the front line would not under­ stand it if the future fate of the Russian territories were to be discussed publicly now, because the present military situation would make such a discussion appear untimely. 3 At the last moment, Rosenberg’s speech was called off.4 He had failed to conciliate either the doctrinaires or the pragmatists, and also had failed to stand fast on his own position. His first attempts to adjust had been in vain. The D uel: Rosenberg v. Koch Koch’s appointment ushered in an era of terror and oppression, and his name became the symbol of German brutality and stupidity in the East. More than anyone else Koch succeeded in arousing the population of the Ukraine against the Germans. 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Die grosse Stunde des Ostens’ , draft for delivery December 18, 19 4 1, E A P 99/387*, C R S ; interview G -6. 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über Unterredung beim Führer am 1 4 .1 2 .1 9 4 1 ’, Document 1 5 1 7 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 270-2. 3 Krümmer, memorandum on Propaganda Ministry conference of December 17, 19 41, Document N G -3 3 0 5 * . 4 Carl Haensel, Das Gericht vertagt sich (Hamburg : Claassen, 1950), p. 198.

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Koch’s behaviour also constituted Rosenberg’s major grievance when he saw the Führer in mid-December. Symptomatically, however, what he ventured to discuss was not Koch’s actual policy but his independence of action. Rosenberg told the Führer that Koch, through various remarks to officers of the OKW, had produced the impression that he had the privilege of reporting directly to the Führer and, in general, intended to reign without [reference to] Berlin. As always, morbidly jealous of his own power, Rosenberg reacted oversensitively to Koch’s attitude. Similar remarks [Rosenberg continued] to the effect that he made policy have been made to my associates. . . . I had made it clear to him that a distinct relationship of subordination existed [between them]. Rosenberg hoped that Koch would mend his ways but implored the Führer in the future to receive Koch ‘ only in my presence’. Hitler, Rosenberg optimistically reported, ‘ immediately consented. . . .’ 1 If Rosenberg had hoped that the question had been settled, he was mistaken. The crisis had not even begun. Actually Hitler was of one mind with K o c h ; and it mattered little whether or not Koch had direct access to Hitler so long as Bormann was around. Hitler, like Bormann and Koch, made no basic distinction between Ukrain­ ians and other Eastern peoples.12 Koch became bolder. After successfully defying the Ostministerium on a number of minor issues, he declared in February 1942 that ‘ the Reich Commissar [was] the sole representative of the Führer and the Reich Government in the territory entrusted to him. . . . All official agencies of the Reich must therefore, without prejudice to the rights of supervision exercised by the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, be subordinated to the Reich Commissar.’ Koch’s statement, which also barred his subordinates from dealing directly with the Rosenberg Ministry in Berlin, was a challenge to the Ostminister.3 Reluctantly even Hitler had to agree 1 Document 15 1 7 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 270-2, 2 T h e Ukraine, according to him, had in 19 18 been a German invention. In another twenty years it would be inhabited by twenty million Germans. ‘ Every organization * on the part of the natives must be suppressed. (H T T , pp. 34, 68, 4 23-5 ; Harry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche [Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 19 5 1], pp. 49 - 50 , 7 I_4 -) 3 Erich Koch, ‘ Meine Auffassung über die Stellung des Reichskommissars*, February 5, 1942, Document Rosenberg-10, T M W C , xli, 184. See also Koch, circular, August 29, 1942, R K U , Zentralblatt, i, no. 29 (September 19, 1942), 3 3 1. On the dispute in February 1942 over the agrarian reform, see below,

PP- 333-4-

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that such a position on Koch’s part was ‘ untenable’. The formal chain of command, whatever the backstairs arrangements, was to remain Hitler-Rosenberg-Koch.1 On the surface, the Rosenberg-Koch dispute was as yet barely visible. But Rosenberg’s growing friction with his Reich Com­ missar, the collapse of his initial attempts at compromises with the Himmler-Bormann wing, and the increased pressure from the ‘ pro­ nationality’ and emigre spokesmen within his own little empire caused him to revert to a more determined, if not overly consistent, version of his initial programme. From early 1942 on, his ‘ differen­ tiation ’ thesis finds renewed expression. At a conference of German experts on Soviet affairs, held in March 1942, the anti-Muscovite and veiled ‘ pro-Ukrainian’ theme rang out with new clarity.12 Even so, the crucial question of the future status of the various Eastern areas was skilfully evaded since the gathering was semi-public and the proceedings were to be published; the storm of protest over Rosenberg’s undelivered speech of mid-December had left its mark. The gulf between the ministry in Berlin and the commissariat in Rovno continued to grow. Encouraged by Lammers’ rebuke to Koch, in mid-March Rosenberg sent Hitler a brief memorandum which, without mentioning names, was a sharp indictment of Koch’s policy. ‘ Certain personalities’ , he wrote, have drawn the conclusion from [official policy] that they must drastically and publicly give vent wherever possible to such expressions as ‘ colonial people, who must be handled with the whip like the Negroes’ [or] ‘ Slavic peoples who must be kept as dumb as can be . . .’ It is precisely this attitude of disdain, repeatedly shown in public which has often had worse repercussions on the [population’s] willingness to co-operate than all other measures. Finally Rosenberg expressed concern about the loyalty of the Ukrainian population, which, he had claimed only recently, was Germany’s natural ally. Germany could think and plan whatever it wanted, his report to Hitler continued, ‘ but it is not the task of the German political representatives [on the spot] to proclaim measures 1 Lammers to Koch, February 28, 1942, E A P 99/412*, C R S . This letter was the indirect result of Rosenberg’s complaints to Hitler at their conference of February 15, 1942, at which the Führer had taken issue with Koch on several counts. 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Der Ostraum als deutsche Aufgabe’ , and Leibbrandt, ‘ Politische Forderungen an die Ostwissenschaft’ , Probleme des Ostraumes (Berlin : RM fdbO ., 1942), pp. 9-26. This public text of the conference contained some curiously ‘ edited’ statements, whose original appeared in the unexpurgated edition published ‘ for internal use only’ . (Ostaufgaben der Wissenschaft [Munich, 1943].) Cf. especially Probleme, p. 15, and Ostaufgaben, p. 152.

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which in the last analysis might drive the conquered population to despair’. 1 Thus Rosenberg took the easy way out. If German intentions must be aggressively depicted at home, utter silence must prevail in the East. Whatever his own blind spots, he correctly blamed Koch’s policies for doing their share in turning the population against the Reich. Whether a thorough application of Rosenberg’s doctrines could have stemmed the tide is another question. Rosenberg wrote memoranda from his desk in Berlin; Koch made policy on the spot. With Bormann’s connivance, Koch repeatedly made reports to the Führer and even visited Hitler’s headquarters without Rosenberg’s knowledge.2 In vain did Rosen­ berg’s liaison officer at Hitler’s headquarters try to influence Hitler and Bormann ‘ not to break any more china in the Ukraine’ .3 It was symptomatic of its outlook that the Rosenberg group entrenched itself behind arguments for ‘ administrative efficiency’ and ‘ auto­ nomy’ . Only to a much lesser extent did it raise the question of genuinely humane treatment of the Eastern peoples; yet the reverse treatment seems to have had a far greater impact on them than the German failure to erect autonomous states. The Adloniada Below its mediocre figurehead the German Foreign Office harboured a number of genuine specialists and friends of Russia. With the outbreak of war, they had been doomed to virtual im­ potence and inactivity.4 The general relegation of the Foreign Office to a well-nigh useless assemblage of obsolete officialdom — Ribbentrop sensed the prospect that German world supremacy would make a Foreign Office superfluous — gave the specialists united in the ‘ Russia Committee’ an opportunity to rally other officials who, primarily for reasons of prestige, were anxious to retrieve the slipping hold of the Auswärtiges Amt over German foreign policy. This manage de convenance between the frustrated careerists and the some­ what impractical diplomatic experts was to form an antidote to both the negativism of Himmler and Bormann and to the policy of ‘ differentiation’ advocated by Rosenberg.5 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Aktennotiz für den Führer*, March 16, 1942, Document 045-P S, T M W C , xxv, 97-8. 2 The Führerhauptquartier was located in Koch’s realm : until July 1942 near Rastenburg, in East Prussia, and from then on near Vinnitsa, in the Ukraine. 3 Picker, op. cit. pp. 64 m-65 n. 4 See above, pp. 40-2. Some of their activities relating to prisoners of war, propaganda warfare, and agrarian reform are discussed below. 5 Interviews G -19 , G -3 1 ; Gustav Hilger, ‘ The Causes for Germany’s Political Failure in the Ukraine, 1 9 4 1 - 4 4 ’, M S * (RRC), pp. 1 6 -17 ; von Ungern-Sternberg,

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The leader and undisputed ‘ elder statesman ’ of this group — one of the few men respected by Germans, Great Russian and nonRussian emigres alike — was Count von der Schulenburg. He had returned from Moscow in 1941 a disappointed man and, before joining the anti-Hitler conspiracy in 1943-4, tried several times to effect a major change in German Ostpolitik. Schulenburg, a pro­ ponent of ‘ political action’, was perhaps the only prominent man in the Reich to advocate a middle course on the nationality issue that might have satisfied some elements in both camps. ‘ All nationalities would be offered self-determination, and he would have helped all of them, including the Great Russians, to set up independent states. If the new states decided in the long run to form a federation, he would have raised no objection.’ One of his former colleagues asserts that actually Schulenburg personally favoured such a Russian Federation but was prepared to recognize the statehood of any nationality that genuinely desired it.1 Another former associate writes that, Count von der Schulenburg believed that the definitive status of the Ukraine could be settled only after the conclusion of the war. As possible solutions he envisaged a strong autonomy of the Ukraine within a Russian con­ federation, or under certain circumstances an independent Ukraine within a confederation of European states.2 Effective action would have required Ribbentrop’s support or at least his tacit consent. The Foreign Minister, however, was afraid to approach Hitler on any matter involving a change of policy because of the disfavour he had already incurred. Not only had the June 22 invasion discarded his main achievement, but his protest late in July 1941 against Rosenberg’s plenipotentiary powers in the East had resulted in one of the Fiihrer’s famous irate outbursts.3 There­ after he preferred to keep quiet. Yet in the spring of 1942 Ribbentrop could not resist the tempta­ tion so attractively sketched by Schulenburg and his associates to recapture the initiative in Eastern affairs. The idea was simple affidavit, Document N G -2 2 0 7 * ; Walter Conradi, ‘ Deutschlands Ostpolitik im 2. Weltkriege*, M S * , p. 16. See also Paul Seabury, The Wilhelmstrasse (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1954). 1 Interview G -3 1 ; Wallace Carroll, ‘ It Takes a Russian to Beat a Russian’ , L ife (Chicago), December 19, 1949, p. 82. On Schulenburg, see also above, p. 1 0 ; Rudolf Rahn, Ruheloses Leben (Düsseldorf: Diedrichs, 1949), p. 1 3 2 ; Allen W . Dulles, Germ any's Underground (New York : Macmillan, 1947), pp. 169170 ; Gustav Hilger and Alfred G . Meyer, The Incompatible A llies (New York : Macmillan, 1953). 2 [Herwarth,] ‘ Deutschland und die ukrainische Frage, 19 4 1-19 4 5 * , M S #, p. 6. 3 Kordt, op. cit. p. 305 n. ; G . M . Gilbert, The Psychology o f Dictatorship (New York : Ronald Press, 1950), pp. 190-1.

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enough: to put the leading emigre representatives of the nonRussian nationalities to use — as a lever both to promote Soviet defection and to recoup influence for the Auswärtiges Amt. Some of the refugees had already established ‘ national committees’ and ‘ governments-in-exile ’ in Berlin, Paris, or Ankara. What provided the final impetus was pressure from Turkey, which, the Foreign Office felt, was agitating for support to be given to the Turkic emigres from the U .S.S.R . In any case, the areas bordering on Turkey were to receive special attention.1 In April 1942 the Foreign Office sent out invitations to some forty emigre leaders, almost all of whom accepted; at the end of that month they assembled at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. Among them were such diverse personalities as Count Heracles Bagration, the pre­ tender to the throne of Georgia, and the grandson of the North Cau­ casian independence fighter, Said Shamil. After some discussion, the guests urged the German government to proclaim its support of the ‘ independence’ of each of the nations they claimed to represent. The ‘ Adloniada’ (as the conference was promptly dubbed) assumed a farcical character. Schulenburg and his friends persuaded Ribbentrop to seek an audience with the Führer in order to plead the cause of German self-interest which, they insisted, demanded co-operation with the separatist refugees. Early in May Ribbentrop saw Hitler — and, as usual, returned fully converted to the views of his master and completely rejecting his own statements of a few hours earlier. ‘ It is all nonsense, gentlemen!’ he told his aides. ‘ In war-time nothing can be achieved with your sentimental scruples. Don’t bother your heads over things on which the Führer has made a definite decision ! ’ 2 Ribbentrop readily accepted another defeat, and the conference soon dispersed. But Schulenburg only became more bitter. He blamed the Foreign Minister for his servility and his failure to present the problem properly. . A little naively he told one of the North Caucasian leaders at the Adlon, ‘ If we had a real Foreign Minister instead of this man, perhaps we could have pushed it through’.3 In retrospect it appears certain that, inept though Ribbentrop was, his personality was of little import here. There was no likelihood of Hitler’s changing his mind. The Ostministerium had marshalled its ‘ heavy artillery’ against this sudden and ‘ illegitimate’ intrusion of the Foreign Office. Rosenberg insisted that Eastern affairs were his business, and no one 1 T h e Turkish and Caucasian aspects of the problem are discussed below, Chapters X I I - X I I I . 2 It appears likely that the statement, reported from memory by Kleist {op. cit. p. 209), refers to this episode. (Interviews G - 3 1 , H -106, H -546.) 3 Interview H -8 1.

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else was to have a hand in them — especially Ribbentrop, whom he loathed. Rosenberg also detected ‘ democratic’ motives in some of the refugee participants, among whom were some old emigres who, in the atmosphere of France, Switzerland, or Turkey, had been staunch anti-Nazis.1 Thus, threatened by ‘ encroachments’ from Koch and Ribben­ trop, Rosenberg asked for an audience with Hitler and was finally received on May 8. Among the many issues discussed, that of the Foreign Office weighed particularly on his mind. He now made a volte-face on the emigre issue. After reading a list of the refugees who had been assembled at the Adlon (among them, Rosenberg insisted, were two ‘ known agents’ of the Allies), he suddenly adopted the view that he ‘ held it extremely dangerous to gather these emigres here from all over the world’. If there were to be emigres, they should be his trusted consultants. Hitler, Rosenberg added in his notes, ‘ listened with surprise’ and instructed Lammers ‘ to inform the Foreign Office officially to give up its entire activity in the East immediately’.2 He wanted to hear no more of it. Indeed, in the following days Hitler repeatedly expressed his indignation about the Auswärtiges Amt. ‘ Above all, the Foreign Office should refrain from all talk about collaboration [with the Eastern peoples]’ , he exclaimed. ‘ What an assemblage of characters [Sammelsurium von Kreaturen] there is in our Foreign Office ! ’ 3 The Adlon episode led to the official elimination of the diplomats from the handling of Soviet affairs. Impatiently, Rosenberg urged the implementation of Hitler’s verbal instructions. When Ribben­ trop demurred, Rosenberg approached Lammers again with a request for a new and formal order by Hitler.4 Finally, after the various ministries had discussed drafts of a Führer decree for weeks, Lammers presented the case to Hitler on July 10. Rosenberg wrote jubilantly that the Führer had already decided that ‘ all political preparations for the East are to be handled according to the formula suggested by m e’ . He requested the dissolution of the diplomats’ Russland-Gremium and the withdrawal of the Foreign Ministry’s observers from the occupied areas. Finally, he wanted Ribbentrop to turn over to him all files on the emigres who had gathered in Berlin.5 1 Nikuradze and Schickedanz appear to have influenced ‘ the B alt\ (Interview G-6.) 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über eine Unterredung mit dem Führer im Führer­ hauptquartier am 8.5.42*, Document 1520 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 288-90. 3 Picker, op. cit. pp. 80, 365 (entries for M ay 9 and 14, 1942) ; interview G -5. 4 Rosenberg to Lammers, June 18, 1942*. 5 Rosenberg to Lammers, July 1 1 , 1942, Document N G -16 9 0 *.

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Although Hitler’s verdict was not so extreme, it nevertheless marked an unmistakable victory for Rosenberg. The Foreign Office ‘ was not to concern itself with countries with which we are at war’ . Ribbentrop’s office lost the last vestiges of its influence both on occupation policy and on future planning for the ‘ as yet’ unoccupied areas.1 On July 28 a formal decree by the Führer confirmed the decision. ‘ Steps to prepare the political direction and organization’ of the entire East, occupied and unoccupied, were ‘ [to be] taken by the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories’. 12 For once Rosenberg could celebrate a victory. This would have been incongruous, had his opposite number not been the Foreign Minister.3 Stranger yet, Rosenberg, the perennial advocate of the partition policy and the guardian-angel of the minor nationalities, had emerged as their determined enem y; while the Foreign Office, where what the separatists called the ‘ Muscovite tradition’ was strongest, had become the spokesmen for the independence of the various non-Russian groups of the Soviet Union. Such was the amalgam of domestic power politics, foreign policy considerations, and competing efforts that hardly anyone paid attention to the momentary reversal of positions which the Foreign Office and the Ostministerium had effected. In reality, Rosenberg’s outlook had not changed. As his state­ ments to his associates indicated — and his reaction to the next onslaughts against the OMi confirmed — he remained wedded to his original concept. Indeed, the Adloniada was a Pyrrhic victory for his ministry, which had beaten off a quixotic offensive, only to lose its ensuing battles to stronger enemies. The duel with Ribbentrop had merely provided a welcome entr'acte for Rosenberg’s continuing struggle with Erich Koch. The D uel: Act I I Koch was trying to align everyone he knew against his arch­ enemy, Rosenberg. His main ally, of course, was Bormann. But he neglected no one — neither the SS, nor the Propaganda Ministry. He worked on Goebbels particularly through Joachim Paltzo, who 1 Lammers to Ribbentrop, July 12, 1942*. 2 Hitler, decree, July 28, 1942, Document N G -4 79 0 * and Himmler file 140*. Ribbentrop complained that Rosenberg had pushed through most changes after the decisive meeting of Ju ly 10. (Ribbentrop to Lammers, August 7, 1942, W i/ID .77*, C R S.) 3 Ribbentrop now forebade his officials to deal with the Ostministerium directly and henceforth withheld information from it. (Eric Waldman, ‘ An Analysis of Germany’s Policies Toward the Eastern Occupied Areas* [Master’s essay*, George Washington University, 19 5 1], p. 28.)

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had been Goebbels’ representative in East Prussia and whom Koch had taken along to the Ukraine. Paltzo [Goebbels wrote in his diary on May 2, 1942] presented me with a report on conditions in the Ukraine. In this report Koch com­ plained bitterly about the ineptitude of the Ministry for Eastern Affairs. In that ministry plans are being hatched for future decades, when in reality the problems of the day are so urgent that they cannot be post­ poned. The ineptitude of the ministry is owing to the fact that there are too many theoreticians there and too few practical men. Every section chief builds up his department according to his personal taste. Rosenberg himself is by nature a theoretician, and it is quite evident that he must have constant conflicts with so pronounced a man of action and brute force as Koch.1 In many respects, Goebbels’ remarks were justified. And yet Rosenberg could be stirred into action — at least on paper. On May 13 he sent Koch an extensive philippic, which he made no particular effort to conceal from anyone whom he thought interested. It represents the first of the violent exchanges between the two men. The letter began with a survey of conditions in the Ukraine. Requisitions of food and maltreatment of prisoners of war were bound to antagonize the population; in addition, far-reaching dissatisfaction must be traced to the behaviour of various political agencies — a dissatisfaction which can be of deeper psychological impact than even severe material interference. One after another, Rosenberg repeated the details he had given the Führer at their latest conversation. Koch’s references to the Ukrainians as a ‘ colonial people ’ and the necessity of handling them ‘ with a whip, like the Negroes’, were expressions which had become known to the ‘ widest circles of Ukrainians’ . He proceeded to enumerate a few instances where Koch’s subordinates had gone about whipping innocent civilians and publicly beating the popula­ tion. Rosenberg was particularly aroused by Koch’s statement that ‘ the Ukrainians were not a people at all but an indefinable mixture ’ — a remark sometimes expressed with the addendum that ‘ they were really nothing but Russians ’. To Rosenberg, this was anathema. On the face of it, Rosenberg objected merely to Koch’s tactics, which were antagonizing the population. His line of argument was pragmatic, not ideological. He did not object to the whipping of ‘ inferiors’ per se, for instance, but ‘ such expressions and incidents harm German prestige, in the last analysis render more difficult the 1 The Goebbels Diaries (Garden C ity : Doubleday, 1948), p. 210. later killed by partisans.

Paltzo was

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performance of tasks essential to the war effort, and to an increasing degree diminish the population’s willingness to work’ . In this letter Rosenberg never raised the issue of Ukrainian statehood. On the contrary, trying to impress Koch and the other recipients of his tract, he even adopted a ‘ tactical’ anti-Slavic edge which was basically in conflict with his perennial insistence on the diversity of the Slavic world. There exists a direct danger [he wrote] that, if the population should come to believe that the rule of National Socialism would have even worse effects than Bolshevik policy, the necessary consequence would be the occurrence of acts of sabotage and the formation of partisan bands. The Slavs are conspiratorial in such instances. . . . It is precisely the Slavs who, not possessing a strong State-forming centre, instinctively expect from the German administration firm order and leadership, and will obey more easily a well-reflected order than a moody improvisation and loud provocative behaviour. Time and again Rosenberg returned to the distinction between genuine attitudes and the necessity of concealing them for purposes of persuasion, a distinction that exemplified the gap between the Rosenberg school and the genuinely ‘ pro-Eastern ’ elements : A policy of leading other peoples does not consist in shouting harsh necessities and derogatory judgments into the face of those who are being led; on the contrary, even when such judgments are made, they must under no circumstances be communicated to the peoples ruled. . . . Having at last roused himself to this lengthy pronouncement, Rosenberg concluded the blast against Koch with the statement that he made all members of the Führerkorps Ost personally respon­ sible for the execution of the principles here laid down.1 One can easily imagine the wrath of the Reichskommissar when he received the letter. Three weeks passed before Koch replied. His answer was an equally long and sharp diatribe. Indignantly he rejected the assertion that the population was becoming ‘ dis­ satisfied’. If the Reich was disappointed ‘ in the low value of the Ukrainian population’ , Koch was not to blame; the fault lay with the excessive hopes Rosenberg had initially placed in them. It was hard, he argued, to keep Germans from expressing their profound disappointment — even if their ‘ private formulations have never been as crass as the expressions of the Ukrainians working as inter­ preters for German agencies, who try to wage Ukrainian politics in 1 Rosenberg to Koch, ‘ Verhalten der deutschen Behörden und die Stimmung der ukrainischen Bevölkerung', M ay 13, 1942, Document N G -1 3 2 9 * .

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this manner’. Koch was not averse to ridiculing Rosenberg for his reliance on Ukrainian informants. He could truthfully write that he had forbidden the whipping of the population, to which Rosenberg had repeatedly referred 1 — although he promptly added, ‘ even today good National Socialists, whom I must make responsible for the securing of production and labour recruitment, keep telling me that it is impossible to keep awake the Ukrainians’ naturally low desire for work, without occasional drastic punishment’. Just as Rosenberg accepted Koch’s terms in arguing with him, Koch pretended to accept Rosenberg’s ‘ differentiation’ — only to launch his own counter-attack. The basis of German policy, he granted, was to separate the Ukrainian Slavs from the great Moscow-led Slavic bloc and place them under German leadership. Since, however, the Ukrainian intelligentsia and emigration, from whose influence your liaison men are apparently not entirely immune, see this goal only in a state of their own . . . there exists here a difference of opinion, in which I see the cause of many attacks against my administration. In his mind, there were but two goals which justified his efforts, goals which he reiterated ad nauseam during the following two years : to secure agricultural production and to recruit labour for the Reich. The exigencies of war were supreme and therefore, Koch concluded, I now ask you, Herr Reichsminister, not to make the execution of these tasks more difficult for us by levelling unjustified attacks against my political work. . . . I also ask you not to undermine my prestige by sending decrees containing a critique of my work, to agencies subordinate to me or entirely independent of me.2 Koch’s stand implied a firm and irrevocable rejection of all ‘ catering’ and ‘ concessions’ to the population. Though willing to accept such an attitude toward the Great Russians, Rosenberg could not reconcile himself to it with regard to the Ukraine. He sent a copy of his memorandum of May 13 to Hitler’s headquarters. He told the German press that Nazi policy in the East must be ‘ realistic . . . without schematism [and must be] based on the facts of life’ .3 He made a personal trip to the Ukraine to gather ‘ am1 After numerous protests from Berlin, Koch had issued a brief circular on April 18, 1942 : ‘ The whip is no attribute of German Herrentum. For this reason I forbid members of all subordinate agencies to run around with horse and dog whips and prohibit their use against the native population. I shall mete out disciplinary punishment to violators.* 2 Koch to Rosenberg, June 2, 1942, Document 19 5 -P S * (also N G - i 3 2 9 #). 3 V B -M , June 14, 1942.

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munition’ against Koch and to assert his own authority. And on July 10 he went to see Hitler in order to present his case in person.1 Meanwhile, aware of having put Rosenberg on the defensive, Koch sent a detailed report to Hitler on June 29 without bothering to go through the Ostministerium. Both factions now awaited the Führer’s verdict. Zenith and N adir With the start of the German summer offensive late in June, Hitler’s headquarters had been moved to the vicinity of Vinnitsa. Here on July 22, Bormann, just back from a trip to the neighbouring collective farms, skilfully turned the conversation to the Ukrainian problem. He reported surprise at the high fertility and good health of the Ukrainians : *Such prolific breeding may one day give us a knotty problem to solve’ . Carefully referring to ‘ these damned Ukrainians’, or rather ‘ these Russians, or so-called Ukrainians’ , Bormann appealed to Hitler’s long-range aims of Germanizing the East. The Reich could be interested only in seeing to it that the Ukrainians ‘ do not multiply so much, for one day we want to have this entire country settled by Germans anyway’ . Hitler promptly agreed that it was ‘ extraordinarily important’ not to make the natives believe that they themselves were the masters. Education was to be reduced to a bare minimum; Ukrainian towns were not to be improved; Germans were not to be allowed to live among Ukrainians; and even medical and sanitary services were to be limited severely. ‘ It is not our mission to lead the local inhabitants to a higher standard of life. . . .’ 12 These were the words Bormann had awaited and for which he had carefully prepared the ground. He enthusiastically set out to edit Hitler’s remarks and the very next day sent them to Rosenberg as an official directive from the Führer for the guidance of his policy. They repeated, point for point, Hitler’s comments of the previous evening and constituted perhaps the most extreme policy statement ever issued from the Führerhauptquartier.3 The directive was tantamount to a complete defeat of Rosenberg’s programme for co-operation with the ‘ so-called Ukrainians’ , and, a fortiori, of all plans for the conduct of ‘ political warfare’ in the East. Hitler was annoyed with Rosenberg; repeatedly he used him as a whipping boy 1 ‘ Sekretär des Führers, Tagebuch’ * (entry for Ju ly io, 1942), L C . 1 H T T , pp. 588-9 ; Picker, op. cit. pp. 1 1 4 - 1 7 . T h e two sets of notes taken at this discussion vary but slightly. 3 Bormann to Rosenberg, Ju ly 23, 1942, Document N O -18 7 8 * . For a discussion of its contents, see below, pp. 456-7.

G.R.R.— L

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in his private conversations. And he had Rosenberg in mind when he declared early in A ugust: Anyone who talks about cherishing the local inhabitant and civilizing him, goes straight off into a concentration camp. . . . My one fear is that the Ministry for Eastern Territories will try to civilize the Ukrainian women.1 The summer and fall of 1942 once more encouraged enthusiasm and hopeful anticipation among the German leadership. Victories in the field lubricated the hinges of political extremism. With the Northern front relatively stabilized, the German forces pushed across the Don in July, and a new army group advanced beyond Rostov into the Caucasus. By the end of August, German tanks were at the banks of the Volga; the swastika flew over Mt. E lbru s; Rommel had taken El Alamein; German submarines were sinking hundreds of thousands of tons of Allied shipping each month; the British landing effort at Dieppe had suffered shipwreck. This was outwardly the climactic moment of the Third Reich. But the glorious successes merely concealed the accumulating fissures and tensions. In addition to her many economic and military problems, Germany faced increased resistance within Fortress Europe. If the Soviet population showed a growing inclination to fight back and to oust the Germans at any price, German policy and behaviour had contributed mightily to it. The balance of factors that made Stalingrad possible is too elusive, too complex, to permit of quantitative analysis. If Soviet organization and indoctrination along with Allied lend-lease materiel played their part, so most assuredly did the resolve of the people on the Soviet side of the front not to let themselves be subjected to Koch’s men and methods. News of conditions under the Germans seeped through to the Soviet side, and for once both popular rumour and official agitprop joined in arousing men and women against the menace of Nazi rule. What Stalin’s dramatic appeals and draconic measures had been unable to evoke and what the most far-sighted had predicted since the fall of 1941, was coming to pass : a temporary identification of purposes of the Soviet regime and its people. Germany had become Public Enemy Number One.12 1 H T T , pp. 6 17 -18 (entry for August 6, 1942). See also ibid. pp. 422, 649. 2 On the one hand, the rate of capture of prisoners of war by the Germans was strikingly lower during the advance in 1942 than it had been in 19 41. On the other hand, it was scarcely unmitigated loyalty to the Soviet regime that motivated many Red Arm y soldiers to fight : Stalin’s famous Order No. 227 of Ju ly 28, 1942, provided for summary liquidation of all ‘ panic-makers and cowards’ , and for treatment of all officers retreating without orders as ‘ traitors’ .

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On occupied soil forced labour recruitment was growing in scope and impact on the population.1 Rather than be shipped off to the Reich to toil for the conqueror, many now preferred to escape to the woods, to join the partisans or to go underground. The change in popular attitude was unmistakable. Yet it had no effect on the thinking and actions of Erich Koch and his henchmen. Earlier he had demonstrated the inferiority of the people by referring to its passivity and compliance; now he cited popular hostility as proof for the necessity of harsh retaliation. ‘ Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’ became the slogan for both sides. Each act of partisan sabotage provoked new terror by the occupiers, and each reprisal struck at innocent civilians, who were thus forced to choose sides. While a few here and there committed themselves to the German cause, by far the greater number now sought salvation in joining the struggle against the conqueror. This was the setting in which Koch continued his work : Hitler’s sanction from above, increasing opposition from below, and new victories at the front. Late in August 1942 he addressed a conference of German officials in the Ukraine. Just back from one of his jaunts to the Führerhauptquartier, Koch was, as it were, bursting with Untermensch ideology. ‘ There is no free Ukraine’, he promptly started out. ‘ The Ukraine has to provide what Germany needs.’ To increase the bread rations in the Reich it was essential to procure some three million tons of wheat from the Ukraine, ‘ regardless of losses’ . Hence ‘ the very last must be extracted from the civilian population without regard for their welfare’. Nothing could be blunter: The attitude of the Germans in the [Ukraine] must be governed by the fact that we deal with a people which is inferior in every respect. Contact with the Ukrainians is therefore out of the question. Social contact is not permitted ; sexual intercourse will be severely punished. . . . If this people works ten hours daily, it will have to work eight hours for us. There must be no acts of sentimentality. This people must be governed by iron force, so as to help us to win the war now. We have not liberated it to bring blessings on the Ukraine but to secure for Germany the necessary living space and a source of food.12 1 See below, Chapter X X . 2 Koch, address at the Rovno conference, August 26-28, 1942. While the text of the speech is not available, the above is based on notes taken by one of the attending officers, which are reproduced in the Etzdorf diary ; excerpt in Docu­ ment 264-P S, T M W C , xxv, 3 1 7 - 1 8 ; full text, Document N G -2 7 2 0 * . A swash­ buckling article by Koch on the first anniversary of the establishment of civil government stressed the fact that the Ukraine was ‘ a field only for men of action \ (Koch, ‘ Ein Jahr deutsche Ukraine’ , Deutsche Ukraine-Zeitung [Rovno], no. 18 2 [August 22, 1942].) Characteristically, Rosenberg’s organ in Berlin, in publishing

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In this avalanche of setbacks, Rosenberg seemed adrift. Only one plank of his platform was being carried out without dispute: the extermination of the Jews. As for the rest of the population, he now blamed Soviet resistance on traditional Slavic obstinacy and the fanatical ideology particularly well suited for the ‘ primitive’ East­ erners ; he acknowledged that ‘ those people over there in the East ’ had never had the force or ability to build their own state. Tempo­ rarily at least, he seemed again to have abandoned his ‘ differentiating’ concept. In replying to Bormann’s directive of July 23, he adopted a holier-than-thou attitude and insisted that virtually all the pro­ posed measures, from the closing of high schools to the elimination of Ukrainians from all responsible positions, had been carried out long ago by his orders. He also claimed that there was no plan whatsoever to establish any sort of Ukrainian self-government above the raion level.1 On the other hand, he tried to appease the proponents of ‘ en­ lightened rule’ by accepting a utilitarian programme of ‘ political warfare’ that singled out no nationalities but also did not question the ultimate goals propounded by the extremists : One must try to find a psychological lever with whose aid the same ends can be attained with smaller effort than with the aid of a hundred police battalions. Completing his verbal salto mortale, he proclaimed that it was primarily appearances that mattered : If one pays attention to such details, one will be able to lead these peoples before they notice that in the long run we probably do not intend to give them separate statehood. Did Rosenberg remember what he himself had said and written a year earlier ? His subsequent return to the partitionist position suggests that he was momentarily unsure of himself and seeking for new avenues to victory. He still could not fathom that the turning-point of the war was at hand. He persisted in his pseudohistorical excursions by which he sought to demonstrate a ‘ con­ tinuity of the Germanic “ hereditary fief” in the East’ . After many the same piece, omitted the paragraph attacking ‘ romantic’ and ‘ sentimental’ illusions which, Koch argued, persisted among ‘ some’ German officials. (Ibid. V B -B , August 20, 1942.) 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Meldung an den Führer’ , August n , 1942, Document 0 4 2-P S #. Testifying at Nuremberg four years later, Rosenberg sought to explain : ‘ I wrote an appeasing letter so that I could bring about a pause in the constant pressure under which I was kept. . . . I wanted to ward off an attack from headquarters for I knew it would come. . . .’ (Rosenberg, testimony, T M W C ,

xi, 545-6.)

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centuries of struggle, now at last ‘ the meaning of Germanic history has again free sway’, he declared in his usual confused style. Germany has conquered the East and shall never lose it — ‘ re­ gardless of the political forms which the Führer will some day determine for it ’.1 1 Rosenberg, speech, n.d. [probably August 1942], Document 17 0 -U S S R , T M W C , xxxix, 4 12 -2 5 . Italics mine.

CHAPTER VIII

G E R M A N Y A N D T H E U K R A I N E : (3 ) R E A P I N G TH E W H IRLW IN D The population of the Ukraine is turning against us. . . . I consider Koch to be personally and officially unsuitable to con­ tinue in office.— A lfred Rosenberg Rosenberg and the generals are sentimentalists. . . .— A dolf

H itler

Politicians and Propagandists G o e b b e l s was one of the first Nazi leaders realistically to re­ appraise the setbacks in the East. As early as December 1941 he had abandoned his earlier endorsement of the Untermensch approach and had become increasingly concerned about the extent to which the occupation authorities were antagonizing the population. On the one hand, he sided with Rosenberg’s opponents because he deemed the ’Ostminister a calamity; 1 at the same time, because of the very nature of propaganda, which was his business, Goebbels was bound to object to the Koch approach. ‘ There are lots of possibilities latent in the Russians’, he noted early in 1942. ‘ If they were really to be organized thoroughly as a people, they would undoubtedly represent the most tremendous danger possible for Europe.’ 12 To tie the Soviet population to the German chariot, Goebbels would gladly have engaged in any form of intensive and unorthodox psychological warfare. But in this he was far ahead of his own subordinates. This was well illustrated in the report submitted after an extensive trip through occupied territory by Dr. Taubert, the chief of his Eastern section, and Eugen Hadamowsky, the doctrinaire chief of Radio Berlin. The report displayed outspoken hostility for the conquered. The Eastern peoples, it declared, ‘ cheat us in every way they can, when1 See above, pp. 42-3. On February 13, 1942, he approvingly noted in his diary that ‘ Bormann complained bitterly about Rosenberg, who had managed to create a veritable chaos in his Ministry, and is picking a quarrel with every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Rosenberg too is a sort of Quisling type. A good theoretician but no practitioner, he is completely at sea as far as organization is concerned, besides having rather childish ideas.* (The Goebbels Diaries [Garden City : Double­ day, 1948], pp. 84-5.) On his reorientation on Russia, see also Curt Riess, Joseph Goebbels (Garden City : Doubleday, 1948), p. 212. 2 The Goebbels Diaries, p. 144.

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ever the [German] political leader lacks instinct and fails to set up a network of informers’ . In line with Hitler’s own pet hate, it objected to the antics of German jurists. ‘ Natives are being sentenced to monetary fines of eighty marks, instead of being given a thorough thrashing by the S D .’ Oblivious to the tremendous impact which corporal punishment had made on the attitude of the indigenous population,1 the two guests blamed these manifestations of ‘ stupid sentimentality ’ on Rosenbetg: ‘ The Ostministerium has not succeeded thus far in stopping these and similar tendencies of Berlin administrative centralism, which are dangerous in a colonial area’. Hadamowsky and Taubert approvingly reported back Koch’s oftrepeated statements that 80 per cent of Ukrainian labour must be performed for the Reich. ‘ Men, women, and children must help. If they obstruct his work, the intellectual upper stratum will be eliminated. . . .’ After hearing Koch mince no words about what he deemed the ‘ pro-Ukrainian’ attitude of his superiors in Berlin, the propagandists concluded that he was ‘ known for the extreme form in which he expressed] his opinions’ but fundamentally he shared the same outlook as ‘ we’ . Hadamowsky and Taubert were, however, more subtle than Koch. Much as they rejected the efforts of the Rosenberg staff, they could not condone the ‘ suicidal’ expression of Koch’s goals.2 Theirs was a third position : The Eastern peoples must be given a programme, none of whose promises may be carried out before victory is achieved. Instead, this programme must be held out as a goal for which the Eastern peoples deem it worth investing their labour and risking their blood. Up to this point, the plan sounded strangely like Rosenberg’s ‘ revised ’ goals. But the propagandists continued : [This programme] must include no promises of statehood, such as the Ostministerium wishes, because we would thereby be awakening in entire peoples nationalist movements, which today haunt the brains of only a few intellectuals. . . . It would therefore be lunacy to introduce corsetstays to prop them up. The purposes of propaganda thus amounted to an exhortation to ‘ struggle and labour’ for the Germans, an outlook not unlike Koch’s but expressed with more sophisticated duplicity and flexibility. 1 Physical abuse is overwhelmingly reported to have been one of the major stimuli to anti-German feelings on occupied soil. 2 A deleted section of their report contained a severe (and not entirely fair) indictment of the Ostministerium for its ‘ failure to understand the necessity for long-range propaganda goals* and for ‘ shying away from making promises to the Eastern peoples*.

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Condemning Koch’s ‘ poor sense of public relations’, Taubert and Hadamowsky insisted (just as Rosenberg had been prone to do) on the necessity of concealing Germany’s genuine aspirations : If our own people do not understand this theory but continue to speak cynically about the *natives ’, ‘ half-monkeys ’, ‘ colonial policy ’, ‘ exploita­ tion ’, ‘ liquidation of the intelligentsia a limitation of education, closing of universities, suppression of artistic and cultural life, sabotage of churches, etc. — then our propaganda will ultimately appear cynical and backfire. The report concluded : ‘ We must therefore speak two tongues’ .1 Their warnings came none too early: by late 1942 German propaganda did indeed ‘ appear cynical and backfire’ because of the striking contrast between mellifluous words issuing from German loudspeakers, leaflets, and newspapers, and the stark reality of the Einsatzgruppen and Koch’s policy. Such memoranda, expressing different views but agreeing on a condemnation of Koch’s methods, were multiplying. Agricultural experts working in the East, Army officers, even SS personnel, sent home messages ranging from oblique criticism to actual ‘ S O S ’ signals. In practice, however, the struggle against Koch remained centred in the Ostministerium; only his nominal superior could legitimately try to put him in his place. Yet in the view of many of his own subordinates, Rosenberg was too timid to act. Much as he hated Koch, his tendency to compromise every time Hitler or Bormann shouted at him complicated the efforts of those who wanted to bring about an improvement in policy. Rosenberg’s meek reply to the Bormann directive of July 23 had aroused much indignation among his own staff. One of Leibbrandt’s aides, Dr. Markull, drafted a memorandum which was submitted to the minister with Leibbrandt’s tacit endorsement early in September 1942. In substance, the memorandum was an effort of Rosenberg’s staff to needle him into action. It began by reviewing at some length the pronouncements of Koch and some of his faithful followers. In the spring of 1942 Koch had declared that the Easterners ‘ stood far below us and should be grateful to God that we allow them to stay alive. We have liberated them ; in return, they must know no other goal except to work for us. There can be no human companionship. . . .’ Then followed excerpts from typical conversations of his staff: ‘ Strictly speaking, we are here among Negroes’ (meeting of the Cultural Department, April 1942); 1 Hadamowsky and Taubert, ‘ Bericht über die Propaganda-Lage im Osten’ , September 17, 1942, Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O .

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‘ The population is just dirty and lazy . . .’ ; ‘ In my area, whoever shows signs of intelligence will be shot ’ (District Commissar [Kreisleiter] Becher); 4We must always endeavour to incite one group against another’ . . .; ‘ In all unpleasant matters the odium must fall on the Ukrainian section heads.’ Markull proceeded to criticize Rosenberg’s spirit of compromise as shown in his reply to Bormann. ‘ It is necessary’ , he wrote, ‘ once more to point to the obvious similarity between the opinions professed by Koch and the instructions given in the Bormann letter. Leaving aside the question of whether this similarity is accidental, Koch’s opinion, in any case, has prevailed over that of the Minister.’ His staff knew Rosenberg’s sensitivity to encroachments on his authority and his vainglorious enjoyment of prestige. ‘ Nearly all the Department Chiefs . . . [and] the majority of the administrative officials’, Markull continued, ‘ place their hopes in the Minister. They would consider a ministerial decree conforming to the Bormann letter as evidence of a complete change of policy, which would result in deep depression and loss of confidence. . . .’ 1 While Rosenberg apparently did not know what to do about the situation into which he had manoeuvred himself, his staff persisted in submitting new suggestions and reports.2 The most telling indictment of the Koch policy came in a thirteen-page memorandum submitted by Dr. Otto Bräutigam on October 25, 1942. It is worthy of close attention since it epitomized a growing trend of thought. It spoke for those who had started out convinced, in varying degrees, of the necessity of downing Bolshevism; who would have welcomed the destruction of the Russian em pire; who also in some mild form believed in the desirability of stimulating the nationalism of the non-Russians; who sincerely cherished the grandeur of the R eich; but who, in different forms and degrees, objected to Nazi methods and goals. Such men were to be found in virtually all branches of the German government machine. Perhaps one of their most articulate spokesmen was Bräutigam. His memorandum began with a concise summary of official German war aims in the E a st: [1] a war for the destruction of Bolshevism, [2] a war for the shattering of the Great Russian empire, and finally [3] a war for the acquisition of colonial land for the purpose of settlement and economic exploitation. 1 Markull, ‘ Zum Bormann-Brief*, August 19, 1942, forwarded by Leibbrandt to Rosenberg, September 5, 1942, Document R -3 6 1*. 2 See, for instance, Theurer to Rosenberg, October 7, 1942, Document 054-P S, T M W C , xxv, 103.

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‘ This triple purpose has as its consequence the tremendous resistance of the Eastern peoples. Were the war waged merely for the destruc­ tion of Bolshevism, it would have been decided in our favour long ago.’ Nor did Bräutigam see in the second goal a reason for deter­ mined Soviet resistance. Asserting that ‘ to the greatest extent, the power of resistance of the Red Army must be traced to the third purpose of the campaign’, he bluntly stated: With the instinct peculiar to the Ostvölker, even the primitive man has rapidly acquired the feeling that for Germany the slogan, ‘ libera­ tion from Bolshevism’, is but a blind for the enslavement of the Slavic Ostvölker in its own way. Nor did he mince words in describing Koch’s behaviour : With unequalled arrogance we disregard all political truths and, to the pleasant surprise of the entire coloured world, treat the peoples of the occupied East as ‘ Second-class Whites’ to whom Providence has merely assigned the task of doing slave service for Germany and Europe. At the same time, Bräutigam’s recommendations suffered from inconsistencies typical of the group he represented. At one moment, he would speak of special political purposes in the Ukraine (fully in line with the Rosenberg concept); the very next moment, he would dissolve the Ukrainians in the general ‘ Russian’ mass for whom he demanded better treatment. Thus he recommended : (1) With regard to the Ukraine an absolutely positive policy must be conducted in every respect. For us the Ukraine must not merely be an object of exploitation, but the population must actually feel that Germany is its friend and liberator. . . . The treatment of the Ukrainians and the other Eastern peoples in the Reich must be decent and full of human dignity. In public, in print and word of mouth, everything must be avoided that might somehow indicate that we look at these regions as objects of exploitation. The Russian people must be told something concrete about its future. . . . (2) The Reichskommissariat for the Ukraine is generally recognized to be the exponent of the policy characterized above, which has neither [ttV /] recognized the role of the Ukraine in world politics and has succeeded in losing for us the friendship of a people of forty millions. Bräutigam therefore suggested the replacement of Erich Koch by a personality ‘ possessing sufficient political ability’ .1 The attitude expressed here was distinctive in that it advanced a programme which banked on the support of the Soviet population. Actually it urged little more than a series of palliatives. Even if its 1 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung*, October 25, 1942, Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 3 3 1-4 2 . Italics mine.

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proponents realized this, they failed to take into account that official policy goals and the behaviour which stemmed from them were part and parcel of the Nazi outlook. Moreover, these suggestions came at a time when a large part of the population on occupied soil had already made up its mind about the invaders. Yet the insistence and frequency with which such views were expressed underscored the need to re-examine Nazi policy. The Army in Politics The Bräutigam blast came at a moment when his arguments were likely to impress many who had heretofore been blinded by military successes and confident of Germany’s ability to muddle through to victory. For the first time, the crisis developing at the Eastern front was perceived not, like the previous winter’s, as a temporary setback but as a fundamental assize by arms, in which the Wehrmacht had neither reserves nor illusions. While German forces were being whittled away, Soviet strength was growing. Stalingrad was at hand. The offensive into the Caucasus was halted short of the Groznyi oilfields, short of the passes into Transcaucasia, short of the Caspian Sea. Along the Volga, von Paulus’ Sixth Army was engaged in a frightful struggle. Soon even Hitler was made to understand that the ‘ final thrust’ against the ‘ exhausted’ enemy had failed. The psychological drop from supreme elation to startled disbelief and alarm was as sudden as it was profound. But while the military commanders repeatedly urged an ‘ adjustment’ of the German posi­ tion and a withdrawal of the exposed flanks, Hitler stubbornly per­ severed. To the corporal turned commander-in-chief, ‘ manoeuvre’ and ‘ flexibility’ were suspect euphemisms for retreat. And retreat there must not be ! At the end of September Haider was dismissed as Chief of the General Staff. His successor, Lieutenant-General Kurt Zeitzler, was not adept at the endless bickering which went on at Hitler’s head­ quarters. His role was distinctly subordinate. Even Jodi was temporarily out of favour. ‘ The very word “ General Staff’ ’ now acted on Hitler like a red flag.’ The process of subordinating the Army General Staff to the Party and the SS, the ‘ victory of ideology on the ruins of the Arm y’ ,1 was nearing a climax. It was to reach its peak a year later when Himmler assumed control over the Army’s Abwehr, Army reserves, and V-weapons. Little wonder that 1 Walter Görlitz, Der deutsche Generalstab (Frankfurt : Frankfurter Hefte, 1950), PP* 594 *7 * See also Helmuth Greiner, Die oberste Wehrmachtführung 19 3 9 -19 4 3 (Wiesbaden : Limes Verlag, 1951).

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professional officers formed a large share of the cadres working for a change of regime in Germany. The first big round in the defeat of the Army by the Party, and the defeat of the Reich by the Allies, reached its climax in the winter of 1942-3. When Field-Marshal List asked permission to withdraw Army Group ‘ A ’ from the North Caucasus rather than risk its being cut off, Hitler refused and dismissed List. A few weeks later the Führer was forced to give way, and early in 1943 the German troops hurriedly retreated from the Caucasus. Farther north, before Stalingrad, Paulus’ army was isolated; Hitler had ordered it not to withdraw. The divisions sent to its relief did not arrive; Göring’s air force proved a failure; and after bitter fighting Paulus — trained in un­ swerving obedience, one of the planners of the Soviet campaign, and just named field-marshal — surrendered together with the remnants of his ferociously mauled army. The tide had turned. Germany had lost the initiative on the battlefield. Behind the lines on occupied soil, the population rapidly learned of the German defeats. Within a matter of weeks, Koch’s domain was within reach of the Red armies advancing from the east, while Soviet, Ukrainian nationalist, and independent partisan bands harassed the Germans on all sides. Perhaps it was too late to undo the damage on occupied soil. But one thing was clear to the various German proponents of a ‘ new course ’ in Ostpolitik — sincere men of good will, utilitarians, and hypocrites alike. If something could still be salvaged, there must be a fundamental change of policy.1 Now at last, in the face of external disaster, various elements tried to band together for concerted action. Feelers towards such an inter-departmental rapprochement dated back to the summer of 1942, and a series of fortuitous circumstances — Christmas leave for many ranking military commanders, and the transfer of the Rosenberg offices to the more spacious building of the former Soviet embassy — speeded the scheduling of a major conference between the two agencies which had come to oppose the Koch policy with determination : the Ostministerium and the Army. Leibbrandt and General Wagner arranged the meeting, and on December 18, 1942, the new conference hall of the Rosenberg ministry saw a unique gathering of virtually all its leading officials and a rare assemblage of prominent Army officers representing various sections of the General Staff and each Army Group Rear Area.2 1 See below, Chapter xxv, on political warfare efforts late in 1942. 2 It is significant that the roster of the military included many who, in one way or another, were to become famous in the anti-Hitler movement of the next

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The protocol of the conference noted that a frank exchange of views had resulted in full agreement on the main problems in the East. Mistreatment of the population by German officials ; forced labour recruitment; food shortages; intense popular disappoint­ ment — these were but some of the recurring themes pronounced by each man who took the floor. The conclusion was devastating and inescapable: The present ebb in the attitude of the population cannot continue [declared von Altenstadt, representing the Office of Military Government in the OKH]. A radical change of German policy, especially in the Great Russian area, is required. . . . The seriousness of the situation and the necessary strengthening of the troops clearly demand the positive co­ operation of the population. Von Herwarth voiced the new and potent theme that was in the air : ‘ Russia can be beaten only by Russians’. This slogan was now explored in infinite variations. It is noteworthy that the protocol shows no evidence of any ‘ pro-Ukrainian’ arguments on the part of the military, who considered them an idiosyncrasy of Rosenberg’s. Even the staff of the Ostministerium failed to speak out for the traditional differentiation policy; in his concluding remarks Rosen­ berg pointed out only meekly the ‘ difficulties’ of controlling the ‘ Russian space’ and the necessity of meeting the challenge of a centralized Russia by ‘ regional’ arrangements. . . .* Rosenberg was so thrilled over the new alliance he seemed to be forging that he was willing to sacrifice his special pleading, just as he had previously compromised his programme to secure the blessing of the Führerhauptquartier. Suddenly spurred to action by the uniformed and bemedalled allies he believed he had won, and genuinely alarmed by the picture they had presented, Rosenberg dispatched a messenger to Hitler with a memorandum summarizing some of the salient points of the conference and asking ‘ to be permitted to present orally the subject dealt with above’.2 two years. Most of the officers present were of gentry origin : Count von Stauffenberg, Lieutenant-Colonel v o n . Schlabrendorff ; Lieutenant-Colonel Schmid von Altenstadt ; General von Schenkendorf; General von Rocques ; Hans von Herwarth, and others. 1 Conference of December 18, 1942, ‘ Protokoll’ , January 4, 1943 [here­ after cited as Protocol, December 18, 1942], Document N O -14 8 1* 1 ; interviews G -6, G -9, G -14 . Other facets of the conference are discussed below, in Chapters xviii, xxv. 2 Rosenberg to Hitler, December 2 1, 1942, Engl, trans. in Karl Brandt et aLy

Management of Agriculture and Food in the German-Occupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1953), pp. 6 71-4.

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A few days later he received a stern reply from Hitler’s head­ quarters ordering him not to meddle in military affairs; the Army representatives received an admonition from the Führer not to interfere in political affairs without the express approval of the O KW .1 Rosenberg’s momentary elation over the ‘ pact’ with the Army had been an aberration. The ally he had found was itself under severe attack. Henceforth he was even less daring than before. Koch Again After the Bormann letter, Rosenberg was anxious to demonstrate that he was neither weak-kneed nor likely to sell Nazism short. Thus his next letter to Koch, dispatched almost on the eve of his conference with the Army, was a queer mixture of cautious admonitions and timorous mouthings. Although the letter opened with the statement that ‘ the military and political situation in the East demand[ed] a most emphatic re-examination of the over-all attitude of each German entrusted with a mission in the Eastern territories’, it proceeded to enumerate causes for the deterioration of morale and loyalty which had nothing to do with Koch. Even the closing of colleges was attributed to ‘ war necessities’. German friendliness toward the indigenous population was ‘ not to be the friendliness of a comrade but, without any doubt, the friendliness emanating from a man definitely his superior’ . Though a local official might well receive a local delegation on the occasion of some celebration, ‘ it is not permissible that such a festival should end with a fraternizing drinking bout, not to mention other intimacies . . .’ The hypocrisy of Rosenberg’s approach is obvious when one compares it with the almost simultaneous remarks he made at the meeting with the Army officers and in conversations with his staff. His letter to Koch was almost pointless, except for a few lines which he inserted as inoffensively as possible. He insisted that it would be inadmissible for German officers to confront the population with scornful remarks. Such an attitude is not worthy of a German. Germany, thanks to her armed forces, has gained mastery over vast areas of the East. Every German put to work there must therefore be aware of the responsibility which he assumes as representative of the German Reich and People in the East. One is master by dint of appropriate attitude and behaviour, not by obtrusive conduct. One does not lead 1 Interviews G -6, G -g , G -14 . While three prominent ex-members of his ministry agree on the contents of this message, documentary evidence is lacking. Jürgen Thorwald ( Wen sie verderben wollen [Stuttgart : Steingrüben-Verlag, 1952], p. 189) claims, evidently erroneously, that Rosenberg saw Hitler on December 22, 1942-

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people by insolent talk and one does not gain authority by exhibiting contempt.1 Nowhere was direct mention made of Koch. Indeed, all the evidence points to Rosenberg’s temporary willingness to abandon his own programme in return for some deference from Koch. The cause of the Ukrainian nationalists seemed hopeless; the attention of Rosen­ berg’s subordinates had by now shifted from the Ukraine to the Caucasus and the Moslem nationalities. In his anxiety over Koch and the yearning for an entente with the Army, Rosenberg now even went so far as to give conditional endorsement to the use of a Russian prisoner of war, General Andrei Vlasov, as the symbol of a new propaganda campaign.2 The Fiihrer’s reply to the Army-Ostministerium endeavour shattered Rosenberg’s hopes for a ‘ truce’, and left him no alternative but to resume the tug-of-war with Koch, whose closest associates contributed to the general irritation. The SS officer whom Koch appointed Inspector-General of labour conscription (Werkdienst) in the Ukraine, Alfred Fiedler, had frankly declared in a public brochure that for the Ukrainians and other backward peoples ‘ the simplest and most primitive education is the best, so to speak “ education with the mallet” ’ .3 Perhaps the crudest of Koch’s aides was Paul Dargel, his faithful deputy. A German journalist later reconstructed a war-time dispute between Dargel and an official of the Ostministerium. ‘ I am incensed [Dargel began on one of his visits to the OMi in Berlin]. Your plans are in obvious conflict with the wishes of the Führer. You want to rear a stratum of Ukrainian intellectuals, while we want to destroy the Ukrainians.’ — ‘ You cannot destroy them’ [the Rosenberg official replied]. — ‘ Let that be our worry. We want to get rid of this rabble.’ — ‘ What rabble ?’ — ‘ The Ukrainians.’ — ‘ And what will you do with the Ukraine ?’ — ‘ Make it land for settlement of German peasants.’ * In another instance, Dargel forced the resignation of a critical official, Heinz von Homeyer, the chief of the economic section of the General Commissariat in Melitopol’. Early in 1942 both Rosenberg and the local General Commissar had been anxious to appoint Homeyer, but Koch had refused to give him the position. In the fall of 1942, after finally obtaining the post, Homeyer sent Rosenberg 1 Rosenberg to Koch, December 14, 1942, Document I9 4 -P S *. 2 See below, p. 560. 3 Alfred Fiedler, Der Werkdienst des Reichskommissars für die Ukraine ; Hand­

buch für die Ausbildung [Rovno, 1943 ?], p. 4. 4 Jürgen Thorwald, Die ungeklärten Fälle (Stuttgart: Steingrüben-Verlag, 1950), p. 205.

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a memorandum urging a radical change in German policy in the direction of ‘ making friends of the population’.1 Thereupon Dargel called him in for an ‘ explanation’ . As Homeyer recalled, I was of the opinion that one may have to apply severe measures in the East, but one must be just, and some good will and good intentions must be shown in all measures. Regierungsrat Dargel thought this was senti­ mentality . . . [and] that this was the point of view represented by the Army, especially by the older officers. ‘ Since’, Homeyer noted, ‘ I represented a different point of view with regard to the Eastern people, the Gauleiter [Koch] agreed that I should leave the service of the Ministry. ’ 12 Koch was in no mood to yield. The defeat at Stalingrad served only to infuriate him further. In its wake, he sent an official circular to the various German administrators in his realm. Buried among technical instructions on agriculture, there was the following paragraph: As the principle for leadership over the Ukrainians I have raised the demand: Be hard and ju st! Do not believe that momentary circum­ stances [the German retreat] should make you less hard than heretofore. On the contrary. Whoever hopes to reap gratitude from the Slavs for mild treatment has shaped his political experience not in the Nazi Party or in service in the East but in some club of intellectuals. The Slav will always interpret mild treatment as weakness. Numerous events of the last days demonstrate that whenever, in view of the military situation, a German feels obliged to make concessions to the Ukrainians in the form of better food, less work, and political freedom, betrayal by the natives has almost invariably been the reward.3 Incensed by the Koch circular, Rosenberg sent out a wire on March 13 — not to Koch, but to the General Commissars and other officials to whom the circular had been distributed — ordering that all copies be destroyed or impounded. The execution of this order was to be confirmed to Rosenberg. The Gauleiter could not openly countermand the order of his 1 Interviews G -6, G -32 , H -106. 1 Homeyer, ‘ Aktennotiz’ [March 1943], Document N G -I2 9 4 * . 3 Koch, circular, February 20, 1943. T w o weeks later, in an unpublicized speech before the Kiev branch of the German Nazi Party, Koch not only reiterated that ‘ the population must work, work, and again work’ , but he insisted further that ‘ the least German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population around here. . . .’ This speech was brought to the attention of the Ostministerium through Altenstadt, the outspoken colonel of the General Staff. (Altenstadt to Bräutigam, April 1 1, 1943, and enclosure on Koch’s speech, March 5, 1943, Document 113 0 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 9 -11.) See also Erich Koch, ‘ Ukraine in der Bewährung’, V B -M , March 7, 1943.

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superior. But he managed to save face and challenge Rosenberg’s policy-making power by promptly informing his officials merely to clip out the relevant paragraph from the circular and to return it to him, ‘ with the directives given in my circular remaining in full force’ .1 The Battle Joined On the very day that Koch issued these instructions, he sent Rosenberg a fifty-two-page communication summarizing the dis­ agreements between them, which, Koch added, had recently been expressed ‘ in an unusually sharp form, insulting to m e’. The battle was joined. Koch began by pretending to agree with Rosenberg’s concept — ‘ to separate the Ukrainians from the great Slavic bloc under Russian leadership’ . But, unlike Rosenberg, he refused to take the next step, namely, ‘ to stress common elements, if any [etwaige Gemeinsam­ keiten], between the German and Ukrainian peoples’. Such a policy could not succeed, he slyly added, for his subordinates had had occasion to convince themselves day after day ‘ how much inferior the Ukrainian people is to the German’. Koch protested vehemently against Rosenberg’s secret directives requiring ‘ not only correct but even kind’ methods of dealing with the Ukrainians. A group of Rosenberg’s representatives in Kiev had allegedly staged a public rally at which they had advocated cultural autonomy, distinctly an act of ‘ political mischief’ in Koch’s eyes. Koch had the German officials promptly ousted from Kiev. One of the constant reproaches levelled against him by Rosen­ berg, he correctly stated, was the whipping of the population. Koch’s reply is a classic : True enough, once in November 1942 about twenty Ukrainians were whipped by the police because they sabotaged important bridge con­ struction across the Dnieper. I knew nothing of this measure. Had I known what a chain of reproaches this act would unleash, I probably would have had those Ukrainians shot for sabotage. In addition, Koch singled out the support given by the Ostministerium to Ukrainian political groups and emigres towards whom Koch had acquired a ‘ negative attitude’. In this attitude toward the emigres I have been strengthened by a remark of the Führer, passed on to me through official channels \i.e. 1 Rosenberg, directive, March 13, 1943 ; and Koch, directive, March 16, 1943 ; Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O .

G.R.R.— M

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Martin BormannJ, that these emigres spoil the people and that he would have had them shot if he had had a clear picture of their attitude. I regret that this clarity has not yet penetrated into all the sections of your Ministry. Throughout his paper, Koch wasted no opportunity to mention the nefarious influence the Ukrainian emigres had on Rosenberg — an influence unworthy of a true Nazi. Koch also expressed his resent­ ment over Rosenberg’s efforts to control all his moves; nobody, Koch asserted, was going to treat him like a ‘ school boy’. Finally, Koch resented Rosenberg’s futile efforts to frustrate his direct dealings with Hitler’s headquarters. Referring to their long­ standing dispute on this matter, he now wrote : I must note in this connection that the Führer has repeatedly given me, as an old Gauleiter, his political directives and that occasionally he has also made known his conception of [our] Ukrainian policy to persons subordinated to me. Obedience to and publicity of these directives and occasional reference to them 1 have deemed to be my distinct obligation. I wish to be taught otherwise if on this point I have adopted a position which you do not approve of. Koch would not give up his ‘ ladder ’ to Hitler, for ‘ if one eliminates or cuts the relation of the Reichskommissare to the Führer, little remains that could give meaning to their position’. Rosenberg, Koch correctly stated, was continuously trying to restrict Koch’s functions; Koch cynically asked Rosenberg to inform him ‘ in all sincerity’ whether he wanted him ousted from the Ukraine. So long as he was being hamstrung in this manner, he, Koch, declined all responsibility for the future. Rosenberg’s directive of March 13 was the last straw. Now, Koch concluded, his position had been so much jeopardized that ‘ it can be righted only by the Führer’ himself.1 Rosenberg had reason to be frightened. If heads were rolling, was his own secure ? Koch’s brazen behaviour evidently had Bormann’s approval. Now Rosenberg declined to deal with Koch any longer. Instead, he addressed his reply to Dr. Lammers, Bormann’s meeker opposite number as Chief of the Reich Chancel­ lery. At last he lashed out indignantly, castigating Koch (he was after all not addressing Koch directly). His position and courage were bolstered by a fat folder of memoranda by various members of his staff in support of his stand. Except for a reminder of Koch’s pre-war stand on the Russian question — 1 Koch to Rosenberg, March 16, 1943, Document 192-P S , T M W C , xxv, 255288.

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which Rosenberg not unjustly identified with that of the Strasser’s and Weber- Krose — his seventeen-page letter contained few new arguments: The name of Koch has become symbolic of deliberate and ostentatious contempt for the people; a situation is beginning to take shape about which I warned [Koch] . . namely a feeling of increasing popular hopelessness, which kindles hatred throughout the entire country [Ukraine]. The partisan bands which, regardless of any policy of ours, are a permanent danger, have become a magnet for all the disappointed elements among the indigenous population. If the Ukraine was turning against the Germans, it was a consequence ‘ of the political measures of Reich Commissar Koch’, for, Rosenberg sadly added, Koch ‘ has almost completely ruined a great political opportunity’. More than that, his pronouncements and policies had given the much-desired cue to ‘ Jewish-Anglo-American propa­ ganda’ against the Reich. Koch’s behaviour and his constant insults, he continued, were the result of a ‘ complex which I can define only as pathological’. Rosenberg refused to ‘ tolerate’ the situation any longer.1 Provoked by Koch and goaded by his own aides, Rosenberg decided to force a showdown. Strongly implying that he would refuse to yield further, on April 9 Rosenberg asked Hitler through Lammers to relieve Koch of his position as Reich Commissar for the Ukraine. On April 15 he repeated the request in writing : No matter how I examine the attitude and action of Reich Commissar Koch, I consider him unbearable [untragbar] personally and officially to represent the German Reich in the East at such an hour. . . . In view of the urgent situation I ask for authority, until all incidents and problems have been cleared, to grant leave to Reich Commissar Koch.12 Even before this letter arrived at Hitler’s headquarters, Koch had been to see Bormann, who (according to Berger) after a three-hour conference, assured the Gauleiter that he would ‘ fully cover’ him.3 The conflict — for over a year a cause celebre within government circles — had finally reached an impasse in which Hitler had to intervene. 1 Rosenberg to Lammers, March 3 1, 1943, Document 35 8 -P S *. For the text of one of the memoranda enclosed with the letter, see Riecke to Rosenberg, March 30, 1943, Document Rosenberg-19, T M W C , xli, 194-20 1. Weber-Krose was a follower of Möller van den Bruck. Koch was suspected by his colleagues of having had Weber-Krose write the bulk of his book, Aufbau im Osten. (See also Josef Zimmerman, ‘ Erlebnisse und Gestalten im Ostministerium’, M S * , IfZ.) 2 Rosenberg to Hitler, April 15, 1943, Himmler file 5 7*. ’ Berger to Himmler, April 16, 1943, Himmler file 57*.

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His Master's Voice Judiciously prepared by Bormann, Hitler received Rosenberg and Koch on May 19, 1943, at his headquarters near Vinnitsa, in the presence of Bormann and Lammers. While no minutes of this conference are available, three different sources agree substantially on its course.1 Rosenberg began with a series of complaints against Koch : his independence of action, his ignoring of Rosenberg’s directives, and his frequent backstairs conversations at the Führerhauptquartier. Koch’s policy, Rosenberg stressed, had aroused determined and widespread hostility and had fatally handicapped both the labour recruitment and agricultural programmes of the Reich. Koch, on his part, did not deny the deterioration of relations with the Ostministerium. He was too busy to supply statistics to an assemblage of bureaucrats in Berlin. Rosenberg’s policy, he insisted, was in conflict with the principles laid down by the Führer. The Ukrain­ ians, like all other Slavs, were a danger for the Reich and, once given an inch, would grab an ell. Finally Hitler spoke up. While granting that Koch had not acted decorously in asking Rosenberg and his agents to stay out of the Ukraine, he opined that in effect Rosenberg himself had given provocation for these requests. Moreover, ‘ conditions force us to adopt such harsh measures that we can never expect the political approval of the Ukrainians for our actions’. Hitler’s refusal to make political overtures to the people, previously anchored on the rock of Nazi ideology, was now rationalized by reference to Germany’s war-time needs. ‘ If we were to impose milde Tour, it would become impossible to ship labour to the Reich, and the export of food to the Reich would cease.’ Bormann underscored Hitler’s decision to back Koch : ‘ The only right policy is the one which guarantees us the greatest amount of food. Reichsminister Rosenberg should therefore listen to the local offices and their practical experiences.’ Rosenberg tried to argue that the way to get more food was not to hit every Ukrainian over the head, but his words were lost on the Leader. Hitler had no 1 These are a summary given orally by Bormann to the liaison officer of the Foreign Office, von Hewel, who promptly wrote it down ; an account written from memory in 1945 by an official who had read the protocol ; and Hitler's own comments on the conference made orally a few weeks later. (Hewel, notes, in Etzdorf papers, Document N G -3 2 8 8 * ; Buchardt, pp. 44 -51 ; ‘ Besprechung des Führers mit Generalfeldmarschall Keitel und General Zeitzler', June 8, 1943, Journal of Modern History [Chicago], xxiii, no. 1 [March 19 51], 65-8.) A fourth version, a journalistic reconstruction based on interviews with former German officials, is unsupported by other evidence. (Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen, pp . 224 ff.)

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patience with the ‘ Easterners’. As for the Ukrainians, ‘ one should not forget that the greatest friend of the Ukrainian people during the last World War, Field-Marshal Eichhorn, was assassinated by the Ukrainians. . . .’ Furthermore [Bormann’s protocol continued] the Führer must refer to the fact that the Ukrainians and the Great Russian people are not opposed to each other but, on the contrary, the Ukraine is the cradle of Russia, and the Ukrainians have always been the strongest advocates of the Great Russian Empire. The last statement, a Hitlerian exaggeration, touched the very heart of Rosenberg’s outlook. The fate of the Ukraine and of Great Russia was to be one. The aroused Hitler lumped the ‘ senti­ mentalists ’ together, Rosenberg with the General Staff, his favourite scapegoat. Both had provoked his anger — though neither fitted his epithet. Hitler’s answer to the crisis in the East was more harshness. ‘ Only weak generals really believe that pretty phrases may secure us labour’, Hitler exclaimed. If people are being shot in the Ukraine, then it should also be remem­ bered that at home numerous Germans have been killed by air attacks. If forced labour is being demanded in the Ukraine, then it should be pointed out that at home too the German woman is obliged to work, although she is much weaker. Even on the question of the emigres, Hitler told Rosenberg that members ‘ of a foreign race’ should not be employed by his Ministry. Bormann kept smugly quiet. After giving his verdict, Hitler withdrew. An awkward moment followed, with Lammers and Bormann trying to get Rosenberg and Koch to shake hands. Koch, victorious, acted the generous champion, but the wounded Rosenberg turned his back. Sulking, he flew home to draft a silly memorandum which sought to demonstrate that Field-Marshal Eichhorn’s killer had been a Great Russian assisted by two Jew s.1 With the Führer’s verdict on record, even Bormann abandoned some of his customary reticence and paraphrased the Hitler decision to other German officials : ‘ What Rosenberg was planning and was doing was decidedly mischief [ausgesprochener Unfug]’.12 Ten days later Hitler sent his Ostminister a letter expressing the 1 Rosenberg to Bormann, M ay 26, 1943*. Rosenberg reiterated the same point in writing to Bormann sixteen months later. (Rosenberg to Bormann, September 7, 1944, Document N O -2997*.) 2 Propaganda Ministry, record of telephone conversation with Bormann, June 15, 1943, Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O .

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hope that in the future he would co-operate with Koch. Such mutual confidence, he stated, of course ruled out Koch’s ‘ obstruction’ of Rosenberg’s decrees. On the other hand, Rosenberg should resolve to limit his directives to a minimum and not ask the im­ possible of Koch. The latter was to have the opportunity to make counter-proposals whenever he disliked Rosenberg’s draft decrees. Whenever the two could not agree, they were to refer their disputes to Bormann and Lammers.1 In effect Koch now became a minister in his own right; he could be confident that the referral of disputes to Bormann and the spineless Lammers would result in further defeats for Rosenberg. Another man in Rosenberg’s place — a man more independent and of a stronger will — might have resigned. Lesser disagreements had pushed others into opposition to Hitler. But Rosenberg stayed on, partly through inertia, partly in a vain hope to restore his position, partly out of a sense of loyalty ‘ to the end’ . His fidelity to the Man and the Cause remained unshaken. In the Wake of the Verdict Taking advantage of the enactment of a new agrarian decree for the East,123 Rosenberg took a trip through the Ukraine to publicize his ‘ progressive’ policy. Deep down he evidently still hoped to establish himself in the popular mind there as an ‘ anti-Koch’, a revered leader. For Rosenberg, tied to his oft-bombed offices, the trip was an event which provided relief from the Berlin bickering. Three years later he still relished i t : Everything there burst out of the customary dimensions: the corn fields, the Tauric steppe, the cherry orchards. [We] received the reports of Gebietskommissare concerning the great job of rebuilding the artisanry and of fostering agriculture, as well as their worries and wishes. . . . Then we visited Ascania Nova, the tree-and-bird paradise in the steppe. . . . Soon we were sitting in the Crimea in a wonderful botanical garden, drinking the sweet wine of the land in a beautiful evening mood . . . and drove through Simeis, where twenty-six years earlier I had spent a summer. . . .3 But Koch was there too — on Rosenberg’s heels. Rosenberg later dismissed Koch’s presence as evidence of ‘ grossness’ and an 1 Hitler to Rosenberg, June 1, 1943, transmitted by Lammers, June 3, 1943, Document N G -9 4 7 *. 1 See below, p. 36 1. The trip had been agreed upon at the M ay 19 conference, with the mediators apparently hoping that it might help heal the wounds. 3 Rosenberg, Portrait, pp. 305-6.

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attempt to ‘ show off’ in front of his guests, but indeed there was more to it. The very first day in Rovno they had an argument over the land reform. Near Vinnitsa the trip produced a new Krach between the two m e n : their motorcade had stopped in a village where Dr. Otto Schiller, the agrarian expert, was pointing out on a map the contemplated partition of the land. Suddenly Koch burst out within hearing of the 'local peasants that this amounted to ‘ sabotage’ of a Führer decree. Though Schiller protested that the partition was strictly in accordance with instructions which Koch himself had issued a year earlier, Koch raged on against the ‘ dogooders’ and the Ukrainians. In Melitopol’, Koch publicly de­ clared in the presence of a large Ukrainian audience that ‘ no German soldiers would die for these niggers’. In another village where the group stopped a peasant delegation tendered the Germans the traditional bread and salt; Koch thrust the presents out of their hands, screaming that they should not dare offer gifts to a German dignitary ! 1 Koch seemed aware that with Hitler’s backing he could do any­ thing with impunity. Meanwhile the Führer, having reached a verdict, reiterated it with new emphasis. On June 8 at a prolonged discussion on Russian affairs with Keitel and the new chief of the General Staff, Kurt Zeitzler, Hitler could not restrain himself from venting his wrath against Rosenberg. A few weeks later, he rehashed the same arguments in an address before the commanding generals of the German Army Groups. One trouble with the ‘ Rosenberg shop’, he insisted, was that it was loaded with ‘ former Baltic nobles and other Baltic Germans ’ as well as Ukrainian emigres whose goals differed from Germany’s ‘ national aspirations’ . Speaking at a time when the campaign for ‘ political warfare’ was at its peak within German Army circles, Hitler was brutally frank : Were it not for the psychological effect, I would go as far as I could ; I would say, ‘ Let’s set up a fully independent Ukraine ’. I would say it without blinking and then not do it anyway. That I could do as a politician, but (since I must say it publicly) I can’t tell every [German] soldier just as publicly: ‘ It isn’t true; what I ’ve just said is only tactics ’. . . . The rejection of the Rosenberg plan was not a matter of moral scruples for Hitler. More subtle than Koch, he, like the propa­ gandists, would not disallow the use of national themes. But his basic suspicion of refugee aspirations was strong; who could be 1 Buchardt, p. 45 ; interview G -2 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 237-40. Zimmermann, ‘ Fortschritt in der Ukraine’, V B -B , June 29, 1943.

Cf. Job

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sure that the propaganda trick would not snowball into a genuine movement ? One thing was crucial: that suddenly there does not arise this sort of mentality: ‘ Some day perhaps we will not be so well off; then all we need to do is to establish a Ukrainian state; then everything will be in order; then we’ll get a million soldiers \ We’ll get nothing at all, not one man. In his own way, Hitler was more consistent — and far-sighted — than his aides. Indeed, given N azi goals and tactics, the Eastern peoples, Ukrainians included, could not identify their interests with the Reich. In re-enacting the Rosenberg-Koch dispute for the benefit of Keitel and Zeitzler, Hitler put the following arguments in Koch’s mouth: Rosenberg . . . I can carry out the policy you advocate only if I give these people a field of endeavour — set up universities, national com­ mittees, etc.; [otherwise] . . . all you do is accumulate revolutionary energy which must some day be discharged against us. Hence, Hitler concluded: We must not even set any goals for the future. I cannot set any goals which will some day produce independent states, autonomous states. . . . These things must be handled very resolutely, so that no erroneous opinion arises among us on this score.1 Hitler had given his answer, and Koch had free sway. When in June a German journalist saw him in Rovno, he reported home that Koch was ‘ unquestionably the strongest power in German Ost­ politik’. Dr. Hans-Joachim Kausch summarized his talk with the Reichskommissar in the following terms : [Koch] is convinced that the Ukraine must be secured as German living space, especially because of the air attacks from the West. . . . He counts on this and is determined to push large parts of the Ukrainian people farther eastward so as to secure the Ukrainian Lebensraum in the future for German soldiers and civilians. . . . ‘ The tip only after the service ’, — one should act according to this maxim in all Slavic countries. . . . After Hitler’s pronouncement, Koch was also more outspoken on the nationality question : It is nonsensical to apply the nationality principle and to absorb the Ukraine into the European family of nations. The Ukraine has never 1 ‘ Besprechung des Führers’ , op. cit. pp. 62-7 ; ‘ Auszug aus der Ansprache des Führers an die Heeresgruppenführer pp. am 1.7.43 abends’, Document 739P S, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (Munich), ii (1954), 30 5-12. For a discussion of political warfare aspects, see below, pp. 574-6.

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belonged to Europe; she was a suburb of every pan-Slav movement, and for her, as for all Slavs, there counted only the principle of conquerors and conquered. I f the German soldier has conquered the Ukraine, he has done so not in order to make the Ukrainian people happy, but to . . . provide settlement possibilities for the descendants of the German front line soldier and to provide a market of first order for Europe.1 When the limited German offensive of late summer 1943 failed and the Soviet forces seized the initiative, the Ukraine once again became a battlefield. German agencies were folding up, evacuating what they could and embarking on a scorched-earth policy of their own. Even where the civil administration remained, military command powers were re-established. In the frenzy of retreat, the Army’s behaviour began to resemble that of the despised Gold­ fasanen. What had previously been illicit practice, Koch now made into l a w : in cases of resistance, the homes of recalcitrant natives ‘ are to be burned down ; relatives are to be arrested as hostages and are to be confined in forced labour camps’ .2 Koch remained consistent to the end. Between Hammer and A nvil 1943 was a year of German failures. Reeling in the East from the blows suffered at Stalingrad, the General Staff conceded that the Reich no longer had the strength for an all-out offensive. A major operation, undertaken on the central sector of the Soviet front, disintegrated rapidly, ushering in a new Soviet advance. The Afrika-Korps was mauled to pieces, and Allied forces landed in Sicily. In the face of calamity, Mussolini was overthrown. Air attacks from the West were being stepped up. Unrest was growing in all the occupied countries of Europe. The German population was called upon to tighten its belt and stake its all on total war. In the Reich — indeed, within the government — the voices arguing for peace, either with the West or with the East, were becoming more numerous. At the same time, the conspiracy against Hitler was making headway and gaining powerful converts. While his fundamental outlook remained unaltered, Hitler was now less concerned with his long-range schemes of wholesale re­ settlement and Germanization. The emphasis of the German rulers was on the immediate utilization of Eastern resources and manpower. 1 Hans-Joachim Kausch, 4Bericht über die Reise’ , June 26, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - 1 1 * , Y IV O . For an expression of similar sentiments by Dargel, see Kinkelin, 4Aufzeichnung über ein Gespräch mit Reg.Präs. Dargel’ , June 28, 1943, Document N O -5 7 7 5 *. 2 R K U to RM fdbO., October 29, 1943, Document 290-PS, T M W C , xxv, 3 3 0 - 1-

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Spoliation and forced labour were the demands of the hour. To them, and to the assurance of military ‘ security’ on occupied soil, all else was subordinated in the official formulation of Ostpolitik. Even the few measures intended to increase popular co-operation, such as the new agrarian decree in June 1943, pursued narrowly economic goals; and their enactment, let alone enforcement, encountered hostility from the ‘ colonizers’.1 It was ‘ too little and too late’. However much they may have feared or hated the Soviet regime, the bulk of the population in the occupied East had come to fear and hate the occupying power more.12 Life in the Ukraine under its various masters — German Army, Goldfasanen, and SS, Communist partisans, Italian and Rumanian troops, Ukrainian police, and nationalist bands — had become a peculiar existence, full of imponderables and terror.3 Germany had entered the Ukraine in the summer of 1941 full of hopes. Handled cleverly, a large part of the Ukrainian population might well have made common cause with the new authorities. The people, by and large, thirsted for relief; their demands were modest. A unique opportunity presented itself. Germany bungled it, and aroused against itself those it had claimed to free. Step by step the disillusionment spread. If here and there individual German officials had proved sensitive to popular aspira­ tions and had acted with common sense, to all but a handful of the population such instances were vastly outweighed by the ever­ growing list of German abuses and atrocities. On no issue were divisions among the German leadership more striking than on the Ukraine. No area meant more to them. Yet, ignoring the voices clamouring for a new ‘ enlightened ’ policy, those who had authority — from Hitler to Koch — remained stubbornly 1 See below, pp. 3 6 1-3. 2 T o the question, ‘ Did the attitude of the population toward the Germans change markedly between the time they arrived and the time you left ? * a random group of refugees who had lived under the occupation answered : No : 85 Yes : 728 Virtually all reported a change against the Germans. O f these, some 250 replied to the question, ‘ When did this change set in ? * Winter 1 9 4 1 -2 : 22 1942 : 169

1943 :

61

(Project on the Soviet Social System, Russian Research Center, Harvard University, ‘ Wartime Occupation Code Book’ *, W O 12 -13 .) 3 A survey of life under the occupation, except for certain facets examined in Part III, exceeds the framework of this study. For an analysis placing special emphasis on the problem of Ukrainian nationalism, see John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 1 9 3 9 -19 4 5 (New York : Columbia University Press, 1955).

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committed to their myths and visions. While the German troops were victorious, concessions to popular aspirations were considered superfluous; when they lost, concessions were deemed dangerous. When resistance snowballed, the reply was increased terror against the ‘ unruly hordes’. Those who thought differently argued in vain. As 1944 dawned and German troops were retreating from the Ukraine, neither Hitler at his headquarters nor Koch on the spot had found a recipe for ‘ ruling the East’. They had started with a crusade against the unholy. They had soon comforted themselves with images of an impending paradise. Then they had stubbornly clung to the programme of exploiting the East to the full. In each case, they had failed miserably. Though experiences and policies varied in each locality, the result was substantially the same everywhere. The most militant elements of the population joined anti-German forces, Communist or antiCommunist bands; the mass of the people anxiously awaited the day of liberation; even those who, in fear of Soviet retribution, retreated with the Germans called down a plague on both their houses. Koch was the protagonist of the ‘ colonizers’ . While Hitler both sanctioned unbridled economic exploitation and laid down plans based on the most extreme interpretation of Nazi dogma, Koch was the focus which attracted economic and political madmen. ‘ If I find a Ukrainian who is worthy of sitting at the same table with me,’ he once declared, ‘ I must have him shot.’ 1 Goring and Bormann, Sauckel and Himmler were content to see his brutality rampant. The opposition against the doctrinaires and extremists — Nazi and non-Nazi, civilian and military, propagandist and sincere, utili­ tarian and Ukrainophile — was with good reason a house divided against itself and, above all, unable to bring about any change in the ferocious blindness of the powers-that-were. It was a measure of the abyss that, by comparison with Koch, even Rosenberg, himself the utmost Nazi exponent of anti-Russian, anti-Bolshevik, antiSemitic, anti-religious, anti-democratic ideas, in the chiaroscuro of the occupied East could at times don a grotesque mask of liberalism. Even his caricature of humanitarian ‘ concessions’ to indigenous aspirations failed. Like other occupied areas, the Ukraine, lost on the field of battle, had even earlier been lost by Germany in the minds and hearts of men. 1 Frauenfeld, ‘ Denkschrift über die Probleme der Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’ , February io, 1944, Document N O -539 4 *, p. 8.

C H A P T E R IX

TH E DIADO CH I AND T H E E A S T :

1 9 4 3

Politics ruin the character. T hey develop the worst and meanest qualities by forcing into the front of men’s minds their ambitions, their vanity. . . . T o many of them politics are only a means to eliminate competitors, to conduct vulgar intrigues, and to attain personal power.— J oseph G oebbels

Rosenberg and the S S R o s e n b e r g had emerged from his duel with Koch as an ineffective weakling. With all his intolerance and doctrinaire mumbo-jumbo, he mellowed slightly as time made defeats a commonplace for him. His frantic endeavours to graduate from shadow-boxing into the rarefied strata of the Nazi diadochi are best exemplified by his relations with the competing agencies of the German hierarchy — the Foreign Office, the Army, the SS, and the Propaganda Ministry. After the setback administered by Hitler’s verdict of mid-1943, his dealings with the SS moved to a climax. Rosenberg and Himmler were enemies of long standing; their relations symbolized the conflict between theory and practice, between the passive and the dynamic. The constant friction between the SS and Rosenberg officials during the first years of the Eastern war had only widened the gulf.1 The OMi abhorred both the elite guard leaders of the Heydrich type and the Untermensch philosophy of the SS — and the SS condescendingly reciprocated the revulsion. Yet the increasingly isolated Rosenberg sensed the need for support in the contest for power, first of all, in his losing fight with Koch. Where could he turn ? Goring had sponsored Koch and 1 See above, pp. 35-8, and below, pp. 206-8. Rosenberg, in a typical complaint to Lammers, in M ay 1942 wailed that in a number of instances the S S had gone ‘ over the heads of the General Commissars’ and had given its representatives in the field directives ‘ of a purely political nature’ . Failing to arrive at a direct agreement with Himmler, Rosenberg continued : There has not been a single case in which the Reichsfiihrer-SS has channelled directives of a general nature and of fundamental political importance through the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. . . . I must ask you to enforce the Fiihrer’s decrees, all the more because it is no longer a question of isolated misunderstandings but of a fundamental and continuous attempt to reverse the legal structure of the state by transforming the [SS] executive into a legislative organ. (Rosenberg to Lammers, M ay 6, 1942, Document N G -9 5 1* . See also the correspondence in Himmler file 57*.)

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was, moreover, steadily losing influence. The Foreign Office had just been ousted from Ostpolitik. Bormann was of one mind with Koch. The military, themselves at bay, scorned the civilian meddlers; some of them opposed Rosenberg as an exponent of Nazi dogma; and those who had been willing to enter a coalition with him in December 1942 had been silenced by Hitler’s annulment of their unconsummated marriage of convenience. The only possible ally was the SS. It is unlikely that Rosenberg analysed the situation precisely in these terms. In all probability, the idea of a coalition with the SS occurred to him only after the initial, almost accidental, contacts had been made. A pact with the SS meant compromising Rosenberg’s principles most fundamentally, but, he must have rationalized, Himmler’s backing would leave him free to pursue his own policy, and perhaps he could even convert the SS to endorse it. At the same time, the support of the SS would neutralize the hostility of Bormann and Koch. Himmler and his officers, on their part, had nothing to lose. They knew only too well that the SS was the stronger partner and could therefore dictate its terms. Himmler could place his stooges in the Ostministerium and thus perhaps add one more to the list of eminent domains and holding companies which he already controlled. Himmler, the cynic, never for a moment entertained any desire for a thorough-going political entente with Rosenberg. The nonentity who became the middleman between the two ‘ powers’ was a poor Württemberg peasant’s son, Gottlob Berger, who had joined the Nazi movement and the SA before Hitler’s rise to power. After the Roehm affair he had shifted his allegiance to the SS, where he became a successful officer on Himmler’s staff, a blind and devoted tool, crude and vulgar, and, if need be, unscrupulous. During the war, Himmler entrusted him with the direction of one of the key branches of his empire, the SS Hauptamt (SSH A ).1 Rosenberg had met Berger in the late spring of 1942. When Himmler’s agent inquired into the reasons for the ‘ strained relations’ with the SS, Rosenberg attributed them, not incorrectly, to un­ warranted interference by the police in the occupied countries and, more generally, to the personal conduct and the policy pursued by order of Reinhard Heydrich. Since this conversation followed Heydrich’s assassination by Czech patriots, Berger could safely second Rosenberg in laying the blame at the door of his dead 1 Berger, interrogations, October 15, 19 4 7*, C U , and N M T , xiii, 4 57 ff. ; interviews G -8, G -9 ; Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin (Bonn : AthenäumVerlag, 1950), p. 15 1 ; Buchardt, p. 50.

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chieftain. Berger, who was prone to agree with anyone he talked to (Rosenberg later claimed), sided with Rosenberg on this occasion, too.1 Rosenberg, plagued by his conflict with Koch, soon informed Himmler that perhaps closer liaison between them should be estab­ lished. In Ju ly 1942, after a conversation between them, Himmler named Berger (‘ with whom you personally and your office have already had good contact’) as liaison officer to the Ostministerium.2 Berger was proud of his role of peace-maker and enjoyed the limelight into which he was moving. He proceeded eagerly to cement relations with his new ‘ friends’. On July 17 he could inform Himmler that Rosenberg’s deputy, Gauleiter Meyer, had also expressed the feeling that ‘ Thank goodness, we \i.e. the SS and the OMi] are making peace ! ’ Himmler noted on his report: ‘ Very good’ . A week later, Rosenberg invited Berger to a conference with his officials at the Hotel Adlon. Berger ‘ took this opportunity to make friends with the Reich Commissars’.3 He was now deep in his favourite role of busy-body and fully immersed in a new set of intrigues. At the same time, from his SSH A office, Berger kept Himmler informed of the unpublicized workings and conflicts within the Ostministerium. For Himmler, the bargain was already paying off. But Berger had not become ‘ converted ’ to the Rosenberg concept overnight. After all, he directed the SSH A — the very agency which had sponsored the Untermensch campaign. Even while working with the OMi, he adhered to the official SS line.4 This Rosenberg did not know or did not want to know. He seemed content with his fence-mending operation. Himmler, on his part, 1 Rosenberg, affidavit, Document N O -3 3 5 *. Heydrich had been S S liaison officer to Rosenberg in 19 4 1-2 . 2 Himmler to Rosenberg, July 1942, Document N O -3 6 3 1*. 3 Berger to Himmler, July 17, 1942, Document N O -3 12 9 * ; Berger to Himm­ ler, July 24, 1942, Document N O -902*. 4 Commenting on a report by Professor Mikhail Akhmeteli (‘ K . Michael'), the Germanized Georgian who headed the S S Wannsee-Institut, Berger propounded a policy fully consonant with that of Koch. Unfairly 'accusing' Akhmeteli of succumbing to ‘ Jewish-democratic' influences, he raged : The Ukrainian must know that we are the victors and masters. A t present, in wartime, he must obey. What happens after the war is no concern of his at all. . . . The Ukrainians too have been Bolshevized for 22 years and accordingly must be treated with requisite caution. (Berger to Schellenberg, January 6, 1943, Document N O -30 22*.) This Akhmeteli report was subsequently to cause some trouble for Schellenberg, under whose supervision the Wannsee-Institut functioned. In the spring when he submitted the report, in duly revised form, to Himmler and Kaltenbrunner, he was sharply accused of defeatism. It took him (he claimed) a long talk with the ReichsfiihrerS S to mend matters. (Schellenberg, interrogation, April 30, 1947*, C R S.)

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soon demanded a reward for his contribution to this ‘ alliance*: he wanted Berger to become State Secretary in Rosenberg’s Ministry. There was more to this request than a mere desire to give his protege one more official position. Berger would replace Georg Leibbrandt, Rosenberg’s old friend and the head of his Political Department, long an object of SS attacks.1 At first Berger tried to mobilize OMi officials such as Meyer and Schickedanz against Leibbrandt.12 When this proved ineffective, the SS decided to build up a ‘ case ’ against Leibbrandt, in part based on alleged connections of his Ukrainian aides with Soviet intelligence, and Berger was instructed to co-operate with the Gestapo in following up this matter.3 Dr. Kurt Sesemann, an officer of the semi-official Trans­ ocean News Agency and an old foe of Leibbrandt’s, joined with the SS in submitting a written accusation against Rosenberg’s right-hand man of abetting ‘ treasonable activities ’ which ostensibly had reached ‘ dangerous’ proportions in ‘ infiltrating the highest levels’.4 Coming at a time when the Rote Kapelle group of Soviet agents had just been uncovered, the accusations did not seem as impossible as they might have either earlier or later, even though the Ostministerium indignantly dismissed them as spurious. Whatever the connections of his associates, the charges against Leibbrandt himself were evidently based on no more than intrigue and resentment; none the less, they strengthened Berger’s hand. The over-ambitious SS Gruppenführer saw his star rising and could not restrain himself from dropping hints of his impending ‘ appointment’.5 Actually, a number of officials in the Rosenberg Ministry were determined to oppose Berger’s promotion. Yet even his foes agreed that ‘ this no longer could change anything in the future development of the M inistry; it might be possible merely to delay the entrance of Berger [into the OMi] and postpone the strong influence which the SS seeks to exert on the Ostministerium’. When Rosenberg agreed to meet Himmler on January 25, 1943, it was assumed that Berger would not only replace Leibbrandt but would also be promoted to 1 See above, p. 86. 2 See, for instance, Berger to Himmler, August 27, 1942, Document N G - 3 5 1 1 *. 3 Himmler to Berger, October 25, 1942, Document N O -7 3 7 * . Kozhevnikov was arrested as a result of these accusations. See above, p. 118 . 4 Pohl to Brandt, October 29, 19 4 2 *, and Brandt to Ohlendorf, November 27, 1942*, Himmler file 203. In March 1943 Rosenberg asked the Ministry of Justice to prosecute Sesemann for slander ; by the time the prosecution got under way, Sesemann had been drafted and was in the field. T he issue was still pending when Leibbrandt left the Ministry. Apparently Sesemann also charged Leibbrandt with being in the pay of British Intelligence. (Interview G -14 .) 5 Hildebrandt to Gottberg, January 9, 1943, and Gottberg to Hildebrandt, January 2 1, 1943, Documents N O -14 9 6 * and N O -14 9 7 * .

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State Secretary in full control of political affairs as well as the personnel of the Ministry.1 At their meeting on January 25, Himmler agreed to ‘ release’ his man to Rosenberg; in return, or so Rosenberg construed it, Himmler promised support against Koch. Berger himself (and for this there is only his own post-war testimony) was willing to take the job on the condition that ‘ Hitler should clearly consent to my appointment and to the reorganization of the Ministry’ ; unless such clear-cut endorsement was given, Berger feared Bormann’s wrath.12 Though Rosenberg and Himmler ostensibly agreed, there is no evidence that an approach to Hitler was actually made, for something went wrong. Not only did various administrative officials of the OMi, such as Labs and Runte, refuse to continue in their jobs if Berger’s appoint­ ment went through, but Gauleiter Meyer, Rosenberg’s deputy, vigorously protested the plan. Berger’s promotion to State Secretary would have put him ahead of Meyer in the Ostministerium hierarchy. Apparently it was this personnel problem which led Rosenberg to drop the plan — incongruously sticking to his loyal deputy while willingly forsaking his principles.3 For the moment Leibbrandt remained in office, and Berger continued in the SSH A. In a memorandum to Himmler shortly after the decision, he confided : As to the Ostministerium, I had reconciled myself [to the transfer to it] but with difficulty. I say difficulty because I believed that precisely as head of the SSHA I could give the Reichsführer [Himmler] more than as State Secretary in the Ostministerium. . . . I am proud that I may now remain in my Hauptamt. Berger could not pass up this opportunity to develop his views, which, one should think, should have made him persona non grata with the Rosenberg enterprise : For a long time we have believed that if one makes economic conces­ sions to the Eastern peoples (see our Polish policy) and accords them political freedom, they are won for us and will march for us. The more we have done in this direction, the more these people have changed their 1 Brandenburg, memorandum, January 23, 1943, Document N O -59 16 *. 2 Berger, affidavit, Document N O -10 6 8 * and N O -3 9 17 * . It is worth noting that the time of this S S ‘ expansion’ coincided with S S efforts to extend its control in the Foreign Office, both by introducing its own personnel into its service and by securing the removal of figures like Weizsäcker and Woermann. 3 Berger to Himmler, March 27, 1943, Document N O -14 8 8 * ; interview G -6. Meyer had originally been offered the position of State Secretary, as befitted his status, but he had declined because, in his capacity as Reichsstatthalter for Lippe, he felt he had a rank equivalent to Reichsminister.

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minds. Actually they became conscious of their ‘ nationality’ only as a result of these concessions on our part.1 This was the man whom Rosenberg planned to accept as a counter­ weight to Koch ! Technically Berger remained as liaison man to the OMi and for a while tried to keep on good terms with everyone there.2 It is typical that this little man rapidly acquired a certain feeling of ‘ belonging’ to the Ostministerium, even though he was roundly disliked there. More important, he gradually succumbed some­ what to the persistent arguments of the anti-Koch wing. Thus in the Rosenberg-Koch crisis Berger rallied to Rosenberg’s side and wrote Him m ler: How Koch has behaved toward Rosenberg, partly in the presence of witnesses, is unworthy, and I wonder where Koch gets the courage, since so many things have gone wrong in the Ukraine, and in the entire German Reich there is nothing but unanimous rejection of Koch’s methods. Having so easily ‘ convinced’ Berger, Rosenberg renewed his feelers to have Himmler support him against Koch : From various questions of the Reichsminister I have come to feel his wish that, should it come to an even sharper conflict [with Koch], (x) the Reichsführer-SS should support him ; (2) Obergruppenführer Prützmann [chief SS officer in the Ukraine] should confirm that Koch’s policy is in many respects inimical to the Reich’s interests. With all its non sequiturs and irrelevancies, Berger’s letter showed that he had emerged as a sharp critic of Koch.3 Though still an ‘ outsider’ Berger spent the next few months working more intimately with the Ostministerium. At last the two organizations managed to collaborate closely on several specific issues, such as the efforts to work out a statute of autonomy for the Baltic countries and to set up S S divisions for some groups of Eastern nationals. Berger himself was now eager to become State Secretary, and when Rosenberg expressed fear that, in spite of recent co-operation, the SS did not earnestly want a rapprochement with him, Berger suggested that the bottleneck of Meyer’s status — his resentment of having Berger, a subordinate, appointed State 1 Berger to Himmler, March 9, 1943, Document N O -0 3 1#. 2 He prided himself on having settled some minor disputes between the S S and Rosenberg’s staff and apparently welcomed his ‘ influence* with Rosenberg as a strengthening of the S S drive against the Army. See Documents N O -i8 o 6 #, N O - i 8 i 7 #, and N O -534 4*. 3 Document N O -1488*. In an effort to impress Himmler, Rosenberg sjbnt him reports compromising Koch and his policy. (Rosenberg to Himmler, April 2, 1943, Document 0 32-P S, T M W C , xxv, 92-5.)

G.R.R.— N

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Secretary — be resolved by having Hitler send all the Gauleiters working in Berlin, Meyer included, back to their provinces in view of the emergency arising out of Allied bombings : an ingenious scheme intended to assuage Meyer’s feelings and to enable Rosenberg to save face with his deputy.1 This plan was not taken seriously, but a new opportunity for reorganizing the Ostministerium arose in June. Promptly on the heels of Hitler’s anti-Rosenberg verdict a new controversy arose in connection with the agrarian decree issued early in June, in which Leibbrandt took a position inimical to the Four-Year Plan and some of the ‘ go-slow’ advocates.12 A crisis ensued, and rather than risk spreading his already over-extended gamut of conflicts to the economic agencies, Rosenberg gave in. In mid-June Leibbrandt went on ‘ leave’, officially to take a cure at a Bohemian resort. Berger coyly suggested other, palpably impossible, candidates for Leibbrandt’s job. Finally Rosenberg felt constrained to approach Himmler once again with the suggestion that he ‘ assume a part of the responsibility for the Ostministerium’ by making Berger head of a new Operational Staff in charge of all political affairs (without being appointed State Secretary), permitting him at the same time to remain at the head of the SS Hauptamt.3 Himmler promptly agreed, and on August 10 Rosenberg con­ ferred on Berger direction of ‘ the newly formed Political Operations Staff [Führungsstab Politik]’ of his Ministry. Himmler had won another round.4 It is surprising, in retrospect, that Rosenberg should have agreed without further ado to dismiss Leibbrandt, who psychologically had been his strong support, and to do so without putting up a serious fight. Leibbrandt was the symbol of Rosenberg’s own 1941 line — Ukrainophile, anti-Russian, anti-Koch. Indeed it is a 1 Berger to Himmler, M ay 18, 19 4 3*, Himmler file 67. 2 On the dispute concerning the agrarian reform, see below, Chapter X V II. Leibbrandt claims that, in addition, he protested to the S S about keeping the forced labourers brought to Germany from the East behind barbed wire. 3 Berger to Himmler, July 27 and 28, 19 4 3*, Himmler file 67. 4 Interviews G - 1 1 , G - 1 2 ; Rosenberg to Berger, August 10, 1943, Document N O -348, N M T , xiii, 3 1 7 . The same day the Ostministerium’s Information Bulletin carried an item concerning the reorganization necessitated by the new appointment : T he Main Section Politics is hereby transformed into a Political Operations Staff. Its organization will be governed by separate decree. . . . T he chief of the old Main Section Politics, Ministerial Director Dr. Leibbrandt, has been furloughed at his own request for reasons of health until further notice. S S Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen S S Berger has been commissioned with the direction of the Political Operations Staff while continuing in his previous duties. . . .

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measure of the dead-end into which Rosenberg had manoeuvred himself by mid-1943 that he agreed to sacrifice principle and friendship for the sake of power and prestige — or at least a breathing spell.1 It did not take Rosenberg long, however, to discover that his ‘ bargain’ with the SS had netted him nothing. How little Himmler’s own views had changed and how much he scorned Rosenberg’s outlook — let alone that of more ‘ liberal ’ advocates of a new Ost­ politik — was nowhere better illustrated than in his speech before a conference of senior officers at Bad Schachen in October 1943.12 With considerable aplomb, he asked, ‘ What sort of human is the Slav really ? ’ and proceeded to answer his own question. Only the naive novice who first met the Slav in the East would respond: ‘ They are human beings like us, blonde and with blue eyes. Wonder­ ful ! ’ In reality they are a ‘ mass of Mongols and Eastern Balts’ on whom a layer of Germanic leaders has been superimposed. Perhaps you will challenge me by pointing to the Russian [he sparred]. Let me promptly reply: I too know that the Russians have very capable engineers and specialists. . . . [But] I personally believe that the Slavic peoples are in the long run incapable of bringing about a further develop­ ment of culture. He went further: When you take them singly, everything is wonderful. The moment they are together, there sets in the ancient Slavic drive of the eternally divided and unruly nature expressing itself in intrigue and faithlessness. . . . The Slav is capable of everything : the brotherly kiss . . . a fervent prayer to the Mother-of-God of Kazan’, the song of the Volga boatmen, and all these touching things. He is capable of blowing himself up with his tank. . . . He is capable of cannibalism, of killing his neighbour, cutting out his liver and saving it in his satchel. In dealing with ‘ these people’, he continued, one must never ‘ attribute decent German thoughts’ to them. A different standard 1 There is no doubt that Koch also agitated behind the scenes in favour of Leibbrandt’s ouster. In addition to the latter, Rosenberg had to jettison another of his associates, his press officer, Major Carl Cranz, largely because he dared cut an article Koch had written. (See Document 19 2-P S , T M W C , xxv, 276 ; Kleist, op. cit. p. 181 ; interview G -6 ; H T T , p. 686.) 2 N or had Berger’s views changed. An order of his regarding toleration by an S S sergeant of ‘ insubordination’ from a Latvian read in part : Whoever in the future is soft in the face of insubordination, will be shipped to a concentration camp. . . . Had the sergeant pulled his pistol and shot down the obstreperous Latvian in public, I would have praised and promoted him. (Chef S S H A [Berger], ‘ Stabsbefehl Nr. 2 2 /4 3 ’, October 2, 1943, Document N O -32 1 *.)

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must prevail, and under this standard no holds were barred. ‘ You may call it cruel, but nature is cruel. ’ In dealing with that ‘ entire East European-Central Asiatic horde’, Himmler decreed, we must renounce false comradeship, misunderstood generosity, false weakness and false apologies to ourselves. In these things we must recapture the courage of brutal truthfulness and frankness. Then, and only then, did the Third Reich stand a chance to win the war.1 Such was the attitude of Rosenberg’s coveted ‘ ally’. Indeed the alliance was over before it began. O M i and ProM i The relations between Rosenberg’s and Goebbels’ bailiwicks provide another case study of the interminable wrangling on which the Nazi leaders, engaged in all-out war, spent the bulk of their energies. Rosenberg and Goebbels — the two intellectuals within the Nazi elite — strongly disliked each other. In his memoirs, Rosen­ berg called the Propaganda Minister ‘ the man without a conscience’ , and quoted with obvious glee Kube’s reference to Goebbels’ best­ seller, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, as being concerned with ‘ Me About M yself’. 2 Goebbels, in turn, called Rosenberg’s Mythus an expression of ‘ ideological belching’ .3 Though some agreement had been reached before the invasion that Goebbels would clear all questions of propaganda policy in the East with the Ostministerium, Rosenberg continued to fear — and not without reason — that the propagandists would increase the scope of their own authority at his expense. Time and again in the war years Rosenberg found cause to complain and sought every opportunity to bring discredit on the Goebbels enterprise.4 Though Goebbels himself was not a supporter of Koch, the recommendations of his Eastern Section had an unmistakably antiRosenberg tinge. The Taubert-Hadamowsky report, cited earlier, leaned in this direction.5 Attacking the absence of co-ordination and integration in German propaganda in the East, the Propaganda 1 Himmler, Sicherheitsfragen, October 14, 1943 ([Berlin :] O K W NS-Führungsstab, 1944), reprinted as Document 070-L, T M W C , xxxvii, 498-523. For the subsequent evolution of relations between S S and OMi, see below, pp. 206, 627. 2 Rosenberg, Portrait, pp. 174, 182, 188. See also above, pp. 42-3. 3 Erich Ebermayer and Hans Roos [pseud.], Gefährtin des Teufels (Hamburg : Hoffmann und Campe, 1952), p. 104. 4 See, for instance, 4Vermerk über eine Unterredung mit dem Führer*, M ay 8, 1942, Document 1520 -P S, T M W C , xxvii, 284. 5 See above, pp. 147-8.

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Ministry demanded a wider jurisdiction in this field. In late September 1942, when Hadamowsky had tried to negotiate with Rosenberg on this question, the latter weakly postponed the dis­ cussions and let his deputy slug it out with Goebbels’ No. 2 man, State Secretary Gutterer.1 Meanwhile Koch was trying to ingratiate himself with Goebbels. In December 1942 he sent him a supply train with high-grade food­ stuffs, such as butter, for distribution in Berlin. Goebbels did not mind : ‘ This food from the Ukraine has not only intrinsic value; it is also to serve a propaganda purpose’ .2 Once Goebbels had become deeply critical of Koch’s methods, however, such bribes could not change his mind. He was by no means converted to a ‘ liberal’ policy. Yet, under­ standing the necessity of at least a pretence of friendliness towards the Eastern population, he mournfully observed the change in its attitude towards the Reich : We have hit the Russians, and especially the Ukrainians, too hard on the head with our manner of dealing with them. A clout on the head is not always a convincing argument. . . .3 Goebbels took advantage of Hitler’s proclamation on the tenth anniversary of his assumption of power, in which the Führer had declared : Either Germany, the German Wehrmacht and our allies — and there­ with Europe — are victorious ; or else there will break in from the East the inner-Asian Bolshevik tide across the oldest Kulturkontinent. An innocuous figure of speech, it sufficed for Goebbels to stretch its meaning and to issue a directive to Nazi officials containing his first clear-cut ‘ pro-Easterner’ statement. According to Goebbels, Hitler’s statement implied that ‘ all the forces of the European continent, including above all those of the Eastern peoples, must be put into action against Jewish Bolshevism’ . The conclusion was obvious but, in the case of Goebbels, novel: This cannot be reconciled with direct or indirect discrimination against these peoples, especially Eastern peoples, above all in public speeches or writings, and with injuries to their inner consciousness of their own value. . . . Expressions of the opinion that Germany would establish 1 Rosenberg, fearful of a ProMi offensive, managed to convince the Finance Minister, Schwerin von Krosigk, to postpone the transfer of funds to Taubert's section, who wailed that Rosenberg was blocking his ‘ Eastern money'. (Taubert to Frohwein, October 23, 1942, Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O .) 2 The Goebbels Diaries (Garden City : Doubleday, 1948), pp. 242, 246. 3 Ibid. p. 185.

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colonies, conduct a colonial policy in the East, and treat the country and its population as objects of exploitation, are entirely misplaced.1 Goebbels’ motives were clearly expressed : enemy propaganda must be given no handle to belabour the anti-German theme. His approach was thoroughly cynical. Yet objectively it was a rebuke to the Koch-Himmler practices and a first handshake with the advocates of a more ‘ subtle’ approach. While there were considerable differences over psychological warfare ‘ tactics’, the OMi and ProMi positions were not so far apart that, given good-will and co-ordination, they could not have been reduced to a common denominator. Both occupied, as it were, intermediate positions, between the Bormann-Himmler extreme and the ‘ liberationist’ school at the opposite pole. But once again the Great Intrigue was on. At the very time when the Rosenberg-Koch fight raged and the Leibbrandt-Berger episode was being decided, the OMi-ProMi dispute was fought out with full fury. Less and less time was devoted to actual Ostpropaganda; more and more to interdepartmental strife. The evil genius in the dispute was Goebbels’ master intriguer, Eberhard Taubert, who hated Rosen­ berg, everything he stood for, and everyone associated with him, and was slyly seeking to expand his own realm at the expense of the Ostministerium. Rosenberg wasted no time in complaining to Dr. Lammers, who was becoming an informal arbiter and chaplain for the insulted. Now began an unending stream of correspondence between Lammers, Goebbels, Rosenberg, and their subordinates. The ProMi insisted that it needed to expand to do its task efficiently. Rosenberg replied that he, and he alone, was responsible for the East, including Ostpropaganda. Goebbels was quick to retort that Rosenberg’s personal attacks were irrelevant; what mattered was performance. By analogy with the police and economic agencies, the propa­ gandists also demanded that their experts be assigned to the East. When the problem was finally brought to his attention, Hitler turned down Goebbels’ demand for complete control of Eastern propaganda but instead outlined a division of authority not unlike that which prevailed between the Foreign and Propaganda Ministries.12 1 Goebbels, circular, February 15, 19 4 3*. The circular was distributed to senior Nazi functionaries in Goebbels* capacity as Reichspropagandaleiter of the N SD A P. 2 Rosenberg to Lammers, January 6, 1943 ; Lammers to Goebbels, January 24 ; Goebbels to Lammers, February 1 ; Rosenberg to Lammers, February 1 ; Lammers to Goebbels, February 5 ; Lammers to Goebbels, March 8, 1943 ; all Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O ; The Goebbels Diaries, p. 302. On the 1939 decision, see Document N G -2 9 4 3 * \ Paul Seabury, The Wilhelmstrasse (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1954), p. 77.

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There is no clear-cut evidence on why Hitler did not fully accept Goebbels’ plan. The compromise may have been designed to keep a balance of power among his satraps; perhaps Bormann was eager to prevent the transfer of power to a more able anti-Koch spokesman than Rosenberg. At any rate, Goebbels did not ‘ expect very much from this system; nevertheless [he wrote] I shall try to work along these lines and see how far, I get with it’. In spite of the partial setback he remained hopeful: When I report to the Führer the next time I shall revert to this question. I can under no circumstances be satisfied with the decision as made. The matter has quite obviously been reported wrongly by Lammers, and the Führer made a decision that does not do justice to the facts. But I hope before long to be able to have this remedied.1 Impervious to problems of substantive policy, neither side let things rest. Goebbels continued to urge upon everyone he could the need for ‘ streamlining’ Ostpropaganda. Taubert and his aides spared no effort to compose impressive reports on their own accom­ plishments. At the same time, Rosenberg sought to exploit his fleeting victory over Goebbels by suggesting that Hitler’s decision meant the dissolution of Taubert’s Abteilung Ost. The OMi decided to take things into its own hands and on June 7 made its propaganda section into a large new ‘ Main Section’ [Hauptab­ teilung], to prove that it was giving ample recognition to the im­ portance of propaganda work. This Hitler did not care for. As Bormann told a ProMi official who had been badgering him for help, the Führer fully agreed with the views of Herr Minister [Goebbels]. . . . The Führer has unequivocally taken a position against the creation of a new propaganda apparatus in the Ostministerium.2 The OM i’s clever move had backfired. Hitler, just then at red heat over the Koch affair, was drawing further away from the Rosenberg side. The disgruntled Rosenberg asked for a new decision by the Führer. Again months passed before various drafts were ironed out. The contest — basically as unnecessary as it was futile — was being fought with the stubbornness of a life-and-death struggle. Finally, on August 15, 1943, the Führer granted Rosenberg and Goebbels an audience. Its upshot was a decree by Hitler that was to settle the differences between the two. The decision probably 1 The Goebbels Diaries, p. 302 (entry for March 17, 1943). 2 Rosenberg to Schwerin von Krosigk, March 23, 1943 ; Propaganda Ministry drafts, M ay 22 ; Naumann to Bormann, June 12 ; Bormann to Naumann, June 15 ; Lammers to Goebbels, June 24, all Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O .

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marked a limited victory for Goebbels. Rosenberg kept the authority to issue over-all policy directives, but the propaganda ensuing there­ from was to be conducted by the Goebbels ministry ‘ in closest co-ordination with the RM fdbO ’. If differences should again arise, Hitler’s decision should be obtained through Lammers and Bormann — invariably the cerberi at the master’s den. While this ruling seemed to leave Rosenberg the power of issuing general political directives, it also stipulated that the Ostministerium and the Commissariats were to have no propaganda machinery of their own. Instead, the Propaganda Ministry was to establish branch offices in the field.1 Both men went home dissatisfied and promptly resumed the struggle. From August to December, countless memoranda were dictated, letters exchanged, conferences held, drafts produced, debated, and rejected. The most minute point provoked disputes, down to the question of the letterhead which the propaganda offices in the field were to use, and the momentous issue of who was to sign correspondence in the absence of the head of the propaganda section. Rosenberg sought to delay the establishment of the ProMi offices in the field, while Taubert now claimed full control over ‘ propaganda, radio, movies, press, music, theatre, and culture’. Such a ‘ generous’ interpretation of the Führer decree, Lammers agreed with Rosenberg, required a new decision. Thus, when Taubert persevered, Lammers and Bormann had to bring the matter once more to Hitler’s attention, who, impatient with Taubert’s ‘ unconscionable effort to grab control of all Kulturpolitik for his own department’, ruled against Goebbels. Bormann had again succeeded in keeping some authority in the hands of his weaker competitor. Finally, on December 15, 1943, Rosenberg agreed to the transfer of propaganda activities in the field to the ProMi, which two days later announced the activation of its own Propaganda Offices.12 Well over a year was spent in this fight, resulting in nothing but recriminations — a struggle among full-fledged Nazis, not on matters of principle, ideology, or policy, but primarily over jurisdiction and control. While the Rosenberg-Koch dispute had been deeply rooted in ideological and political differences above which personal elements were superimposed, and the Rosenberg-Himmler and 1 [Hitler,] ‘ Anordnung des Führers betr. Abgrenzung der Zuständigkeit zwischen dem R M fV u P . und dem R M fd bO .’, August 15, 19 4 3*, H L . 2 R M fV u P . file 422/43g., ‘ Aufbau der Propagandaorganisation im Osten’ , August-December 1943, Document Occ E - 1 2 * , Y IV O ; ‘ Protokoll über die Sitzung betr. der Durchführung des Führer-Erlasses vom 15. August 1 9 4 3 ’ , September 16, 19 4 3*, H L ; Lammers to Rosenberg, October 2 7 ,1 9 4 3 * ; R M fV u P ., draft of directives, November 15, 19 4 3 * ; Lammers, testimony, T M W C , xi, 47.

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Rosenberg-Army affairs were marked by a sacrifice of principles or tactics for the sake of illusory political power, the OMi-ProMi feud fell into the rubric of outright personal and departmental jealousy. Of the two men, Rosenberg was the less flexible and more doctri­ naire ; Goebbels the more cynical but also more realistic; among their staffs, Taubert was the most unscrupulous.1 By the time the organizational problems had been resolved, the uses to which propaganda could be put had become strictly sub­ ordinate. By early 1944 the bulk of the population in the occupied areas had long since made up their minds, and no leaflets or news­ papers, broadcasts or concerts could persuade them to shed their blood for the Reich. Rosenberg and Goebbels emerged from the crisis even more bitter rivals than before. The Propaganda Minister now wondered: I don’t understand how the Führer can leave such an obstreperous nincompoop in his job. If I were in his place, I would clear the boards in a hurry.12 1 Another issue involved the ProM i in a conflict with the S S . Various propa­ ganda officials (including Taubert, Hadamowsky, Gutterer, and Kaufmann) urged that the distribution of the Untermensch brochure be stopped. In March 1943, when Himmler learned of their demand, he indignantly wrote Gutterer that the latter would do better to go fight at the Eastern front and to learn there *that the Russian is not the “ fine human being’ ’ which [your] letter makes him seem to be*. Berger promptly added that the message was a ‘ gross impertinence’ , as it implied S S responsibility for the failure of German Ostpolitik. (Himmler to Gutterer, March 12, 1943 ; Brandt to Naumann, March 16, 1943 ; Brandt to Berger, April 14, 1943 ; Berger to Gutterer, April 17, 1943 ; Kielpinski [R S H A iii C4] to Brandt, September 16, 1943, all Himmler file 286*.) 2 The Goebbels Diaries, pp. 546-7.

CHAPTER X

O S T L A N D : LO H SE AND T H E B A L T IC S T A T E S The Baltenland is destined to become an area of German settlement.— Rosenberg, April 1941 T he Baltic countries must . . . be given a status of autonomy along the lines of Slovakia.— Rosenberg, September 1943

Germany and the Baltikum R e i c h s k o m m i s s a r i a t O s t l a n d (or RKO) was the first product of German civil administration in the East. A synthetic invention, it brought under one jurisdiction Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, which had been independent states from the end of the first World War until 1940, and Belorussia, whose eastern regions had been a part of the Soviet Union from its foundation and whose western provinces had been under Polish rule until 1939. The heterogeneous nature of this territory and its population led to a diversity in German goals and policies. The two complexes of the RKO — the Baltikum and Belorussia — must therefore be treated as distinct problems, united only by administrative fiat. At the same time, less attention need be devoted to this Reich Commissariat than to the Ukraine. No such overwhelming policy dispute arose here as the one between Koch and Rosenberg; for some time, the German agencies in Berlin and Ostland were content to follow a policy of ‘ live and let live’ towards each other. More­ over, in terms of the increasing economic pressures which the Reich experienced, the Ukraine was a more highly coveted prize and its exploitation more vital. Finally, the internal development of the Baltic States under the Germans is a subject so vast and so distinct from the fate of the ‘ old Soviet’ areas that only the most cursory attention can be paid to it here. The sharp hiatus between the Baltic states and Belorussia was apparent to any observer. In history, language, population, and economy they had little in common. Indeed, in his earliest memo­ randum on the future disposition of the East, almost three months before the attack, Rosenberg treated the two as clearly distinct entities; only in the next phase of German planning were they, largely for reasons of administrative convenience, bracketed into one Reich Commissariat. From the outset the Baltic area was slated for a clearly privileged position : of all the regions in the East, it was 182

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the only one due to become a full-fledged province of the Greater Reich. Belorussia, on the other hand, less valuable and less familiar to the conqueror, was to be merely a colonial hinterland of the Baltic provinces. As the ‘ real’ Ostland was to consist of the three Baltic republics, the first name given to the whole RKO was Baltenland, and references to Belorussia appeared only as after­ thoughts.1 The special place which the Baltic region occupied in German thinking was well rooted in history. In the centuries-old Drang nach Osten, it was this region above all others that had been the object of German colonization. Hanseatic League and Teutonic Order, tradesmen and soldiers, diplomats and intellectuals had looked to its shores as the locale of Germanic expansion and influence. A considerable segment of the Baltic population spoke German fluently and, until 1939-40, a sizeable number of ethnic Germans had lived here. Among those who now prepared to move into the Baltic states were men who had spent earlier days there in peace or war and some who came from the German coast of the Baltic Sea. Hinrich Lohse, the Reichskommissar of Ostland, was himself Gau­ leiter of Schleswig-Holstein. In his own words, he and his minions were returning to the land of German pioneers, ‘ like the knights of the Order and the merchants of the Hanse, treading the fate­ ful path of great political legacy from West . . . to East’ .12 The guilds of Riga, the spires of Reval, German names and monuments were outward symbols conveniently exploited in the Nazi effort to revive the romanticism of German manifest destiny. It mattered little that the Germans had just been transplanted from these regions into the Reich, or that the indigenous population had come to cherish its independence. If territorial claims could be justified by past occupancy, here rather than elsewhere in the East the German expansionists would have had a case. Yet a basic contradiction remained in the Nazi approach. The Baltic peoples were non-Slavs and, according to the Nazi version, formed a part of the ‘ Western’ cultural domain; traditionally in conflict with the stronger Russia, which had sought an outlet to the sea at their expense, a great majority of the Baltic peoples had come to abhor their new Soviet masters. Thus they were logical candidates 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. i ’ , April 2, 1941, Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 548-50 ; ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’ and appendix, April 7, 19 41, Document 10 18 P S #, and Document 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 555 ; ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichs­ kommissar im Ostland’ , M ay 8, 19 4 1, Document 1029-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 573-6. See also above, Chapter V. 2 Hinrich Lohse, ‘ Ostland baut a u f’, Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), xiii (January 1942), p. 32.

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to form a part of the wall which Rosenberg proposed to erect against ‘ Asiatic M uscovy’.1 On this basis, the Baltic peoples could expect to obtain the status of honourable allies of the Germans. On the other hand, the full-fledged partnership of the Baltic region in the New Europe was, in the Nazi mind, predicated on its thorough-going Germanization. The beneficiaries of its ‘ reunion with the West’ were to be not its present population but the Germans who would move there in the future. According to this plan, the Estonian, Lithuanian, and Latvian population was to be partly assimilated and ‘ Germanized’, partly exiled or exterminated. The present residents were thus rated as anything but allies. Imbued with disdain for the Baltic population, Rosenberg insisted that ‘ twenty years of independence have shown the absolute sovereignty of small peoples wedged between two great states to be unthinkable’. Hence, from the start, he set aside the Baltic area as a ‘ territory for German settlement’ . ‘ For political and historical reasons’, he declared, it would be inappropriate to turn over political leadership there ‘ to the inhabitants themselves’, because Germany’s ‘ ultimate political aims ’ could not be attained if the ‘ old contracting parties — Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians — re-emerged in political control’ . The voice of the Baltic German was speaking. What was needed were German rulers who had ‘ a Hanseatic stamp’.2 Eternally fighting against the ‘ misconception of the oneness of the East’, Rosenberg managed to introduce fine qualitative differen­ tiations among the three Baltic nationalities.3 Like Hitler and the ‘ race experts’ in Berlin, he believed that the Estonians constituted the ‘ elite’ of the Baltic peoples. Blithely doing violence to historical facts, he insisted that Estonia ‘ in the course of 700 years had been Germanized not only in intellect but also in blood’ . Hence most of its people could be ‘ Germanized’, provided ‘ such a smelting process is carefully and skilfully directed’. He was more ambivalent on the question of the Latvians, whom Hitler deemed ‘ Bolsheviks ’ ; finally Rosenberg decided that though some of its population could be assimilated, Latvia as a whole had suffered a ‘ considerable influx of Russian groups’, and that the New Order therefore required the ‘ transfer [.Abschiebung] of larger groups of intellectuals, especially Latvians, into the area of Russia proper’ . The Lithuanians, most Nazi analysts agreed, ranked lowest in the scale and were ‘ strongly subject to Jewish and Russian pressures’. For Rosenberg this 1 This theme recurred frequently in the editorials of the Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland (Riga) and the Revaler Zeitung (Tallinn). 2 Documents 10 18 -P S * and 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 555. 3 T h e discussion set off by these distinctions concerning their ‘ Germanizability* [ric] continued all through the war.

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meant ‘ exiling the racially inferior groups of the Lithuanian population in considerable numbers’.1 The differentiation in practice amounted to a slightly privileged status for Estonians and Latvians as compared with Lithuanians.2 Yet the distinctions were small. Actually, the Baltic nationalities were to disappear — either through exile or through assimilation. Rosenberg the Germanizer here turned the tables on Rosenberg the Differentiator, who elsewhere planned to kindle the national consciousness of small peoples. Without ever properly reconciling the two concepts in his own mind, he clearly gave priority to German interests, however extravagant, over those of other nationalities. Whenever superior German demands came into play, his ‘ pro­ nationality’ reputation proved to be little more than a veneer. The conflict of purposes remained officially unresolved. The very directive which spoke of the goal of rapid German colonization of the Baltic states, also foreshadowed a German ‘ protectorate’ over them.3 At the same time, as part of the anti-Muscovite effort, the territory of the RKO was to be substantially increased at the expense of Great Russia : the wide strip of territory as far east as Lake Ilmen and the Volkhov River was to form part of the new Baltic hinterland. Latvia was to extend to Velikie L u k i; Novgorod, the old Hanseatic outpost in Russia, was to be renamed Holmgard, just as Estonia would perhaps become Peipusland and Latvia would be renamed Dünaland (Dvinaland) when the German settlement there got under way.4 An enlarged Ostland, ‘ cut out of the body of the Soviet Union’ , was to be ‘ brought into closest relation with the German Reich’ .5 Lohse’s Realm Following the rapid German advance into Lithuania and Latvia in the first weeks of war, Hitler ordered their transfer to civilian rule 1 Documents 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 548-50, and ioi 8-PS# ; interview G -6. See also H T T , p. 8 ; N S D A P , Rassenpolitisches Am t, N S Fremdvolkpolitik, ed. by Egon Leuschner (Berlin : N S D A P [1942]), pp. 32 -3 ; and Chapter X I V below. 2 The difference was apparent in subsequent arguments concerning a statute of autonomy and the drafting of troops for the German Arm y and the S S in Latvia and Estonia. See below, pp. 195 and 597. T h e distinction recurred every time ‘ Germanization ’ was discussed. The O M i racial affairs specialist argued that it was ‘ of special importance . . . to awaken among the racially valuable Estonians and Latvians a sense of blood ties to the Germ ans’. No such plans existed for the Lithuanians. (Wetzel to Leibbrandt, M ay 3, 1943, E A P 9 9 /4 11*, C R S .) 3 Document 1029-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 573-4. 4 Rosenberg, ‘ Umbenennungen im Reichskommissariat Ostland’ , August 15, 19 41, Document 10 50 -P S *, Leibbrandt to Rosenberg, ‘ Vorschlag zur Grenzziehung in den besetzten Ostgebieten’ [July 19 41], Document 10 54 -P S *. s Rosenberg, speech, June 20, 19 4 1, Document 10 58-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 618.

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as of September i, 1941 ; on December 5, Estonia too became part of Reich Commissariat Ostland.1 Lohse himself was neither an important nor a colourful person­ ality. A fanatical Nazi, he was less the dynamic leader than the comfortable bureaucrat. Without an integrated ‘ conception* of the East or of the long-range aims to be attained, and not exactly solicitous of the fate of his subjects, he devoted a goodly share of his time to the pursuit of his personal affairs.2 Like Erich Koch, Lohse strove for a personal empire independent of Berlin. In an attempt to make the RKO precisely this, he exerted strenuous and at times childish efforts to ‘ centralize’ everything in his own hands, while actually letting important matters slide un­ attended. Given the huge areas, the tremendous problems involved, and the shortage and low quality of German personnel, Berlin repeatedly instructed its men in the field to avoid trying to run every detail of life in the occupied territories. This Lohse never managed to achieve. For him, totalitarianism meant airtight control. The result was a flood of directives, instructions, and decrees which covered thousands of pages. German civil government arrived with truckloads of files, folders, stamps, typewriters, and other office paraphernalia. In the midst of a war that was assuming all the earmarks of a life-and-death struggle, lengthy correspondence ensued between Riga and the four General Commissariats under its jurisdiction over the most trivial ad­ ministrative problems. Price control was established for metal wreaths, for geese ‘ with’ and ‘ without’ heads, live and dead. Kleist points to a decree of ‘ maximum prices for rags’, with differences of ten pfennig per kilogram between light brown and dark brown rayon rags in Latvia. Lohse personally insisted on signing ‘ No smoking’ signs and regulations for garbage collection. Whenever he was approached about relenting on such matters, he would reply that people were trying to relegate him to a position of ‘ night watchman’. It did not take long for his so-called ‘ Schnorrer decrees ’ to become the laughing-stock of a large part of the German administration.3 When a team of observers from the Propaganda Ministry visited 1 See above, p. 85. Lohse, appointed as a result of the conference of July 16, 1941 ([Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk', July 16, 1941, Document 2 2 1 -L , T M W C , xxxviii, 90-1), established headquarters in Riga ; the three General Commissars moved into Kaunas, Riga, and Tallinn, respectively. 2 Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), pp. 159-66. Like Koch, Lohse spent a considerable part of his time in his Gau or at rest cures in Germany rather than in the occupied territories. 3 Kleist, op. cit. pp. 160, 166. In protest, one of Lohse’s more competent aides resigned. A t the same time, overregulation if anything made for more inefficiency. Schnorrer — a colloquialism for tramp, peddler.

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Ostland in the fall of 1942, they reported resentment among the subordinate agencies against the excessive centralization in Riga —■ a fact which brought the lower echelons into ‘ sharpest opposition to Lohse’. The Generalkommissar of Estonia, Karl Litzmann, bitterly complained that ‘ Riga was celebrating orgies of economic over-organization ’ .1 Lohse saw as his basic task the reconstruction of the areas en­ trusted to him. Aufbau und Kultur was his somewhat hypocritical slogan, and this in itself produced a certain gulf between him and Koch. The fact that the Nazi concept did not brand the Baltic peoples as Untermenschen facilitated his more passive stand. Partly out of sheer inertia, partly because of economic convenience, his tendency was to perpetuate the status quo, including the institutions he had found when he took over the R K O ; for, as he put it, It does not matter if we maintain here some of the old Bolshevik forms of economy . . .: that form is proper which enables us to make available the utmost for the conduct of the war. Hence he opposed the restitution of private property to pre-Soviet owners; Soviet nationalization measures remained in effect for a long time because of his aversion to change, because of his belief in state control, and finally, because German failure to ‘ reprivatize’ was assumed to facilitate the wholesale ouster of the Baltic population at some future date.2 In the meantime the perpetuation of ‘ Sovietization’ could not but antagonize extensive strata of the people. While thus sharing something of Koch’s willingness to exploit the population and its resources for the German war effort, Lohse’s political outlook, inarticulate as it was, came to differ substantially from that of his opposite number in the Ukraine. He did not share Koch’s biological hatred of the people he ruled ; he accepted (much as he had the Soviet institutions) and perpetuated, with some changes, the system of token self-government which the army commandants had sponsored before turning over the area to civil rule. By early 1942 he was even prepared to level an oblique attack on Koch when he told his own staff : So long as a people is peaceful, one should treat it decently. To make political mistakes and to hit people over the head — anyone can do that.3 This attitude was more clearly perceptible at a conference with Goring and other Nazi notables in August 1942. At a time when 1 Hadamowsky and Taubert, ‘ Bericht über die Propaganda-Lage im Osten’, September 17, 1942, Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O , pp. 6-7. Litzmann was the most understanding of the three General Commissars in the Baltic region. 2 Lohse, address to his staff, February 23, 1942, Document Occ E 3-54/56 *, Y IV O . 3 Hid.

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German officials were concerned about the political and economic effects of the growing partisan movement, Lohse was on the defensive for his failure to produce what had been expected. When he cited manpower shortages, forced labour recruitment, and lack of German forces in his area as reasons for his failure, Goring in effect called him a liar; Sauckel attacked him for permitting the production of such ‘ unessential’ goods as perambulators; and Koch proudly commanded, ‘ Just see how things function in the Ukraine’. Lohse’s apologetic attitude was due not to his disagreements over goals but to his inefficiency. This inability to get things done suggested to him an approach radically different from that of Koch, which was well illustrated in the following exchange : L ohse : . . . I have no police and no other means of controlling the

territory at all. When I want to use force or compulsion, the people laugh about it, for I have no means of getting through. G oring : But you are getting [police] battalions ! L ohse : Those few battalions in an area as big as Germany ! . . . G oring : If you get police forces, do you believe you can get more out of [the region] ? L ohse : On the contrary. I believe, we will get still less if we use force.1 Weakness was the key to Lohse’s solution. To counteract the mounting war losses and the demands of front-line commanders for replacements and reinforcements, Lohse could suggest a reversal of German conduct. The people had to be ‘ used’ and therefore given or at least promised something in return. This did not change his basic attitude toward their rights and their future. But if better treatment could increase production, if fictitious symbols of selfgovernment raised their morale and willingness to help the Germans — as many such concessions as were necessary and safe had to be made. Lohse became a specimen of the Nazi utilitarian malgre soi. In a 5 1-page memorandum submitted to Rosenberg and other interested parties in December 1942, Lohse, though opposing an extension of genuine indigenous self-government, demanded a public statement of future political goals, which might be of propa­ ganda value among the population in the East. And while continuing to wage a losing battle against the reprivatization of the Baltic economy, he urged (again largely for propaganda purposes) the publication of a ‘ binding declaration from responsible quarters 1 ‘ Stenographischer Bericht über die Besprechung des Reichsmarschalls Göring mit den Reichskommissaren*, August 6, 1942, Document 17 0 -U S S R , T M W C , xxxix, 398-403. Italics mine.

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concerning the reprivatization to be carried out after the war in future recognition of . . . services rendered’ by the Baltic peoples. Finally, he advocated some improvements in the supply of consumer goods and rations for the population so as to raise their willingness to work for the Germans.1 Lohse’s petty ‘ reformism’ was partly induced by the persistent arguments of some of his more realistic aides. Their plans went far beyond the token measures which the RKO agreed to, and ordinarily Lohse would have raised strenuous objections to any increase in indigenous functions at the expense of German (and particularly his own) authority. Yet by the winter of 1942-3, as much a Nazi as ever, Lohse (Kleist confirms) had at least partially ‘ awakened from his ducal fantasies to relative sobriety and said pithily: “ Well, I agree to everything. It all isn’t worth anything [Tinneff, a Yiddish expression] if we don’t first win the war.” ’ 2 The shock of Stalingrad ever so slightly loosened the reins in Riga. Touchstones of German Policy The Army commanders in the Baltic area had sought to establish organs of government composed of the indigenous population. Apparently not spelled out in specific instructions, such a delegation of wider authority to the ‘ natives’ in this particular region was sanctioned by the High Command. The civil agencies, including Rosenberg’s staff, felt that even here the Army had gone beyond what Berlin had in mind. Indeed, it was the controversy on this matter which precipitated the oft-mentioned conference of July 16.3 1 Lohse, ‘ Denkschrift zur gegenwärtigen Lage der Verwaltung und Wirtschaft des Ostlandes*, December 1942, E A P 99/6*, C R S . 2 Kleist, op. cit. p. 167. 3 In early July Keitel requested that Rosenberg take over the administration of the Baltic areas seized by them (Lithuania and most of Latvia). Apparently the Arm y was anxious to extricate itself from the problems of dealing with the local political groups and preferred to shift the responsibility (and the tedium and onus) to the Ostministerium, which, however, had not yet formally been organized. When Rosenberg transmitted KeitePs request to the FH Q , Lammers replied that ‘ the Führer for the moment does not yet desire any civil administration in the newly occupied Eastern territories and reserves for himself the setting of an appropriate time therefor*. (Lammers to Rosenberg, July 8, 1941, E A P 99/394*, C R S.) Four days later Rosenberg urged strenuously that Hitler formalize the appointment of the Reich Commissars, particularly that of Lohse for Ostland. It was apparently this move that determined the timing of the conference on July 16 (see pp. 84, 123 above). Meanwhile, Rosenberg worked out an agreement with the O K W , by which the lower Echelons of civil administration could begin operating and the German agencies — military and civil alike — would not ‘ recognize* any indigenous governments or armies in the Baltic states or Belorussia. (Rosenberg, ‘ Vorläufige politische Richtlinien für die Zivilverwaltung südlich der Düna*, July 14, 1941, and Dienststelle Rosenberg, agreement with OKWr, July 14, 1941, Documents 10 4 2-P S * and io 4 3 -P S #.)

G.R.R.— O

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When the Reich Commissariat Ostland was established, Lohse and some of his subordinates began by quarrelling with the military commanders over the ‘ excessive’ tolerance they had displayed for Baltic political circles. Nevertheless, the young RKO accepted the fa it accompli engineered by the Army after Leibbrandt informed Lohse that Hitler, at Rosenberg’s request, had approved the creation of indigenous *advisory councils ’ in each of the three Baltic General Commissariats.1 At the same time, Rosenberg’s plans for Germanization reduced his zeal to promote home rule in the Baltic region.. Even when the general network of self-government under German control was established, the city of Riga remained under the thumb of his personal friend, Hugo Wittrock, who had a viciously anti-Latvian reputation. Some of Lohse’s subordinates also had no use for the extension of indigenous authority and definitely opposed Baltic home rule above the local level. In addition, German business circles, which had high hopes of gaining a foothold in the Ostland economy, accused ‘ pro-Baltic’ elements in the German administra­ tion of ‘ giving away’ the country to the natives after it was ‘ con­ quered by the German soldier with his blood’ .12 In spite of these conflicts, a modicum of self-government de­ veloped. In Lithuania and Latvia, the selection of ‘ proper’ personnel for the advisory councils entailed considerable strife among competing indigenous nationalists and collaborators, as well as among German Army, SS, and Ostland officials; in Estonia, after some bickering, the installation of a pro-German puppet regime went more smoothly.3 In the end, the collaborating national­ ists were installed with grass roots thinner and more elusive than Berlin had hoped. Yet, in March 1942, when the transformation of these councils into ‘ advisory’ government organs was formalized,4 even these ‘ quisling regimes’ afforded some participation by the 1 Leibbrandt to Lohse, September 26, 1941, Document Occ E 3b -82*, Y IV O ; interview G -6 ; Bräutigam, ‘ D iary’ * (entry for August 12, 1941), L C . 2 Kleist («op. cit. pp. 157-8) adds that ‘ this line of argument for a moment silenced me. The thought that the German soldier was spilling his blood to deprive the Lithuanian of his farm, the Latvian of his tailor shop, or the Estonian of his drugstore, was news to me.' 3 In Lithuania, the ‘ advisory council * under General Peter Kubiliunas remained relatively unimportant. In Latvia, the Directorate-General under General Oskar Dankers displayed somewhat more activity. In Estonia, the indigenous Landesrat was headed by Dr. Hjalmar Mäe, an old fascist picked in advance. For German reports on the political crises in all three Baltic states during the first weeks of the occupation, the most valuable source is the daily Einsatzgruppen Reports. See also Document 18 0 -L , T M W C , xxxvii, 679-80 ; Documents Occ E 321-13* and Occ Ej3-3*, Y IV O ; and Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), 1 9 4 1 -2 . 4 V B -B , March 19, 1942.

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Baltic population — a ‘ privilege’ which the indigenous groups in the adjacent old Soviet areas did not enjoy. However restricted the actual scope of their authority, these organs constituted a departure from the standard Nazi blueprint for the East.1 In practice, German and indigenous organs were confusedly interwoven in an ambiguous administrative skein that was never disentangled. The same attitude was evident even outside the political field. Prices in the Baltic areas, while below those of Germany, were set at a level above that of the rest of the East. While in the adjacent GreatRussian areas crops were to be planted only for the survival of the population, in the Baltic lands cultivation of more precious crops was contemplated — not because of any economic desiderata but ‘ primarily because of political goals’ .12 The occupation authorities were inclined to let the population share in more cultural benefits than any of the Untermenschen. Proudly Lohse wrote in the summer of 1942 that after a ‘ political-ideological purge’ schools and uni­ versities were again beginning to function. The German language, which the Slavs were deemed unworthy to master, was being studied intensively. Museums and libraries, judiciously pruned of com­ promising items and furnished with German exhibits, reopened.3 The Baltic states were the only areas in the occupied East exempted from the December 1941 order of the Ostministerium closing down schools above the fourth grade. The Baltenland seemed on its way to becoming a member of the German-wrought New Order — a notch or two below the Reich itself but decidedly superior to the rest of the East. This privileged status, however, did not affect German longrange goals. While mass resettlement was not attempted in war­ time, Nazi attitudes were manifested sharply on two issues: in politics, on autonomy, and in economy, on reprivatization.4 1 In the words of a semi-official summary : T h e supreme indigenous agencies in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania receive their directives from the German General Commissars in Reval [Tallinn], Riga, and Kaunas and are responsible to them for the orderly work of the indigenous administration. Under them are the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian counties [Landkreise] headed by a county elderman. The German District Commissars . . . are to supervise their work. (Ostkartei [Berlin], Heft I, no. 7 [November 1943], p. 5.) 2 Hans-Joachim Riecke, ‘ Aufgaben der Landwirtschaft im Osten’ , Probleme des Ostraumes (Berlin : RM fdbO ., 1942), p. 34. 3 Lohse, ‘ Ostland baut au f’, op. cit. ; Walter Zimmermann, ed., A u f Infor­ mationsfahrt im Ostland (Riga : R K O , 1944) ; Ostkartei, Heft IV , nos. 18-20 (June-December 1943). A number of publishing houses operated in the Baltic lands, especially in Riga. 4 Other facets of life under the German occupation still await separate sys­ tematic investigation. For some relevant material, see Bruno Kalnins, De Baltiska

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The perpetuation of Soviet nationalization measures and con­ tinued German control over the Baltic economy did the occupying authorities decided harm among those strata of the population who strove for the reinstitution of private property. Half-hearted and token efforts of restitution were made in 1942, but only in 1943 was a series of decrees concerning the ‘ restitution’ of private property finally promulgated.1 In practice they were never fully carried out— partly because of the difficulties inherent in the process, partly because of procrastination, and partly because of the German retreat. Though indicative of the slight mellowing which Lohse had undergone in the direction of a ‘ new pragmatism’, the reprivatization measures were none the less stymied to a considerable degree because of his continued opposition. The decrees had been virtually foisted upon him by directives approved by Hitler at Rosenberg’s suggestion.2 Shortly before their adoption Lohse summarized his stand in a detailed report which concluded that ‘ my previous and repeatedly expressed opposition against the planned reprivatization continues to exist’ .3 Based both on his own empire-building ambitions and his statist approach to economic problems, the delays did nothing to improve relations between the occupying authorities and their subjects. When finally the decrees were announced, they fell on a soil already thoroughly drenched with popular disappointment. The situation was well reported by Litzmann, the General Commissar for Estonia : The reason for the decline in popular morale [i.e. pro-German feelings] is above all the exclusion of the natives from economic life, a process which continues to develop. Their almost total disbarment from whole­ sale trade, the impending dissolution of banks, the still unfulfilled desire for reprivatization on the part of the indigenous population, the tremen­ dous number of [German] monopoly and trusteeship companies, com­ missars, etc., etc., which multiply daily like mushrooms, each depriving the indigenous population of further fields of endeavour, have a highly depressing effect on their morale, which must sooner or later lead to passive resistance, which in turn would seriously impair the war economy. staternas frihetskamp (Stockholm : Tidens Förlag, 1950), pp. 244-63 ; Ants Oras, Baltic Eclipse (London : Gollancz, 1948) ; Albert Kalme, Total Terror, A n Expose of Genocide in the Baltics (New York : Appleton-Century, 1952), pp. 10012 0 ; J. Hampden Jackson, Estonia (London: Allen & Unwin, 1948, 2nd ed.), pp. 249-56 ; and Latvia under German Occupation, 1 9 4 1 -4 3 (Washington : Latvian Legation, 1943). 1 For these decrees, see RM fdbO ., Vet ordnungsblatt, 1943, no. 5, pp. 57-8 ; and Meyer, Recht, supplement, section O III A 11. On German economic policy, see also below, Ch. X V I I I ; Kleist, op. cit. pp. 163-6 ; and Bräutigam, ‘ Eigen­ tumsfragen in den besetzten Ostgebieten’, Probleme des Ostraumes, pp. 76-8. Retail trade had been restored in December 1941. 2 Interviews G -9, G -12 . 3 Lohse, ‘ Denkschrift’, op. cit.

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. . . The dualism of our policy — economic measures as if we were operating in a Gau reintegrated into the Reich, while leaving the population in the dark about their future — is bound to lead to tensions and have the opposite effect of what we aim at.1 The dualism to which Litzmann pointed was a reflection of the organic contradictions in German policy. While the economic measures adopted to ‘ clarify the situation’ were few and generally not substantial, the centre of debate shifted to the political field. Some, like the head of the Administration Section of RKO , favoured ending the uncertainty by openly declaring to the Baltic peoples that they cannot any longer look forward to state independence in the future, but that their close racial, historical, and cultural ties to the German people are being taken cog­ nizance of, so that they need nowise look forward to being exiled from their homeland.2 Most German officials in the Baltic area, however, favoured a more ‘ subtle’ approach. As German mobilization of indigenous groups was stepped up, the three national ‘ advisory councils’ also became more courageous in raising demands of their own. These bore in the same direction as the proposals of German ‘ pro-Balts’ — both of the sincere ‘ liberationist’ variety and of the narrowly utilitarian school. The more moderate asked for a modicum of autonomy; the most ambitious demanded the conclusion of no less than ‘ peace treaties’ with the Baltic states. Such an attitude did not by any means hinge on a ‘ liberal’ outlook or even on an acceptance of the traditional European state system : the Baltic region was considered an exception to the Eastern mass, and advocating some form of ‘ recognition’ for it was well compatible with Nazism and a fervently anti-Russian approach. Since some of the original promoters of Baltic ‘ self-government’ had meanwhile left the RKO , efforts were limited largely to back­ stairs conversations and memoranda submitted either by Baltic groups themselves (especially by Latvian officers who felt their stock rising as the Wehrmacht’s difficulties increased) or by indi­ vidual German officials. Paradoxically, the SS, in search of Baltic ‘ volunteers’, was among the first in Berlin to back the demand for wider ‘ native ’ authority in the Baltikum ; 3 and with Gottlob Berger 1 Litzmann, ‘ Lagebericht * [August 1942], cited in R K O , Abt. II [Trampedach] to RM fdbO., September 16, 1942, E A P 9 9 /119 5 *, C R S , p. 3. 2 R K O , Abt. II, op. cit. pp. 3-4. 3 As early as 1942 a variety of indigenous police and auxiliary army units were established. In January 1943 Himmler authorized the dispatch of 4000 drafted Balts to the Leningrad front. (Himmler to Jeckeln, January 28, 1943, Himmler file 26*.) Later in 1943, Himmler, impressed by the fighting qualities of Estonians

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muscling his way into the Ostministerium, Rosenberg was inclined to advance a draft statute granting the three Baltic lands ‘ autonomy’. Though still far from enthusiastic about the prospect of giving them formal autonomy, Rosenberg finally yielded to the persuasion of some of his subordinates and forwarded the draft to the Führer, who, aware of Himmler’s support of the project, expressed interest in it. Under this scheme, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia would become ‘ state entities’ under the ‘ protection’ of the Reich, which would retain control of military and foreign affairs, and many phases of economy, and would delegate a ‘ Reich resident ’ to each of the three states. The Reich Commissariat Ostland would thus disappear.1 On February 8, 1943, however, Hitler handed down a negative decision. Bormann had carried the day — in part against Himmler’s efforts to expand the SS, in part against Rosenberg’s efforts to ‘ subvert’ (as Bormann called it) official policy. As was to be ex­ pected, Lohse was strenuously opposed to autonomy, which would have ended his own rule over Ostland, and made his views known at Führer Headquarters in a manner increasingly resembling that of Koch. In the end, Lammers informed Rosenberg that Hitler did not wish to promise the Baltic nations autonomy.2 Hitler’s verdict, however, was not publicized; he still seemed a little undecided on the issue, especially in view of the critical man­ power shortage, which, some officials argued, could be alleviated if the Latvians and Estonians were drafted en masse. Under the circumstances the proponents of autonomy could legitimately continue to press for its adoption, particularly under the fashionable guise of ‘ simplifying German administration’. Thus a new silent front emerged: on the one side, SS and Army officers, advocating autonomy for military reasons, with ‘ pro-Balts’ in the Ostland administration and the OMi lining up with them largely for political reasons; on the other side, Bormann and Lohse, who persevered in their opposition; in the middle, Rosenberg typically ‘ sitting it out’ . The outspoken Litzmann, with the encouragement of Field-Marshal Küchler, went over Lohse’s head to see Himmler in April 1943 in order to give him a confidential report, which was to be passed on to the Führer’s headquarters. Simultaneously, Adolf Windecker, the Foreign Ministry representative in the Baltic area, urged his and Latvians, advocated a general mobilization which, some legalists pointed out to him, required a transformation from ‘ occupation1 into ‘ autonomy'. This breach in the ‘ anti-Eastem ’ stand of the S S was to provide an important precedent for its subsequent reversal. See below, p. 597. 1 Interviews G -6, G -9, G - 1 1 ; Kleist, op. cit. p. 167. 2 Lammers to Rosenberg, March 8, 19 4 3*, and Windecker to Ribbentrop, April 19, 1943, Document N G - 2 7 2 I * ; interviews G -9, G - 1 1 .

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home office to work in the same direction. conversation with Litzm ann:

195

He reported a typical

In answer to my question as to why nothing came of his constant urging to grant autonomy, he [Litzmann] explained confidentially that Reichsminister Rosenberg basically could not withdraw from his favourite idea of a German Ostland because of his Baltic origin and that Reichs­ kommissar Lohse too adhered to the artificial concept of Ostland, if only to avoid endangering his position, and opposed any easing up on regulations with regard thereto. . . . Pointing to the parallel efforts then under way to promote political and propaganda experiments among other Eastern nationalities, Windecker — by no means a liberal — concluded : I therefore consider it my inescapable duty to point out again how important it is that the people of the Baltic countries . . . be immediately given an interim solution more in accordance with their just political wishes.1 The debate dragged on, with more and more officials backing ‘ autonomy’ in the somewhat naive belief that such token concessions could repair the damage done in two years of occupation. Finally, thanks to Himmler’s insistence on drafting ten age-groups in Estonia and Latvia for the SS, the question came up at a conference with Hitler in November 1943 — the last time Rosenberg was ever to see the Führer. Resentful of Himmler’s meddling in what he considered his own domain, Rosenberg was none the less persuaded to back the autonomy project. Bormann, of course, opposed the scheme, and Rosenberg promptly evidenced his proclivity for backing down when under attack from stronger quarters: he volunteered that the deterioration in Latvia and Estonia was due largely to the ‘ softness ’ of the General Commissars there. His own plan provided for either the establishment of cultural autonomy, or the proclamation (but not necessarily implementation) of political autonomy in the Baltic states. According to his notes, the Führer repeatedly interjected that it was self-evident that he could not abandon these countries, that there could of course be no talk about this. He was also inherently opposed to making such far-reaching concessions in difficult times. Ignoring the political autonomy project, Hitler asked his staff to redraft the declaration of cultural autonomy.2 This, at least, was 1 Document N G - 2 7 2 1 * ; interview G -16 . 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über Besprechung im Führer-Hauptquartier am 16 / 1 7 .1 1 , 1 9 4 3 ’ , November 30, 1943, Document 0 39 -P S *; Rosenberg, interrogation, October 5, 19 4 5 #, N A , p. 9.

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what Rosenberg chose to believe. Actually, as Lammers promptly informed him, the entire issue was dead and buried. The Führer deemed the moment ‘ inopportune’ for such declarations, whose contents were, moreover, ‘ belated’. Lammers’ advice was to forget the whole matter.1 Meanwhile Lohse’s conflicts with his partners continued. He submitted interminable memoranda against Litzmann, who refused to carry out some of Lohse’s more inane decrees and authorized, on his own, a celebration of Estonian independence day. In messages to Rosenberg and Bormann, Lohse accused Litzmann of following ‘ a policy of weakness’ .12 In his tug-of-war with the equally stubborn Higher SS and Police Leader for Ostland, Friedrich Jeckeln, who had received special authority to mobilize all available manpower, Lohse spouted abuse in official and informal complaints, which were amply reciprocated. His conflict with the Army was so bitter that in the end he publicly boxed the ear of General Friedrich Braemer, the Wehrmacht commandant for Ostland.3 But his feud was most apparent in the exchanges of acrid and at times insulting messages with Rosenberg. Each tried to eliminate the other: Rosenberg’s plans for Baltic autonomy envisaged the liquidation of the RKO , whose functions would be assumed directly by his Ministry in Berlin; Lohse in turn castigated the Ostminis­ terium for its inability to evolve clear-cut policies or procedures, to the point of approaching Hitler (through Bormann) with a project of doing away with the Rosenberg office and to place the two Reich Commissariats directly under the Führer’s control.4 After prolonged negotiations, often behind Lohse’s back, Rosen­ berg’s staff managed to push through a series of new decrees in February 1944 transferring some authority for cultural activities to the indigenous regime in the Baltic areas; symptomatically, Rosen­ berg at the last minute acted as something of a brake on their enact­ ment but finally acquiesced after being assured that Himmler had secured the Führer’s endorsement.5 A few more efforts were made to explore the possibility of granting political autonomy to (or, as 1 Lammers to Rosenberg, November 20, 1943, E A P 99/429*, C R S. 2 Interviews G -9, G - 1 1 , G - 1 2 ; Martin Sandberger, affidavit, Document N O -39 7 2 5*. 3 Interviews G-6, G -9. 4 Lohse to Rosenberg, December 9, 1943 ; Lohse to Rosenberg, January 8, 1944 ; Rosenberg to Lohse, February 2, 1944, all E A P 99/93* C R S ; Rosenberg, ‘ Die Verwaltung in den besetzten Ostgebieten, Erfahrungen und Vorschläge*, April 24, 1944, E A P 99/64*» C R S , pp. 2, 15. 5 Himmler’s interest was due to the intensive recruitment drive of the S S in Latvia and Estonia. See the correspondence in Himmler file 5 7 * ; and interview

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some suggested in a sudden fit of last-minute histrionics, signing ‘ peace treaties’ with) the Baltic states. These futile projects were terminated by the German retreat. As Bräutigam informed the Ostland offices shortly before their evacuation to the Reich, ‘ In view of the military events in Ostland, it does not appear opportune at present to deal with the international law status of Latvia’.1 The lengthy and often acrimonious debate over autonomy must not becloud the fact that its grant would have conferred no marked advantages on the Baltic peoples. Its advocacy reflected the desire of some ‘ pragmatists’ for a propaganda palliative, and the hope of other elements to use it as a handle for the sincere evolution towards Baltic self-rule. It is revealing that even such a symbolic measure was not acceptable to the German rulers. The End of Ostland Lohse’s days of glory were rapidly coming to a close. By the spring of 1944 the Red Army, for the second time in five years, was insistently pounding at the gates of the Baltic. On April 1 Belorussia was formally separated from Lohse’s domain. In view of the Soviet advance, Ostland was again declared an area of military jurisdiction, and Lohse’s conflicts with the Army and SS multiplied to the point where any effective conduct of affairs was ludicrous.2 Finally, on July 25, Lohse sent Rosenberg a violent philippic. ‘ You believe’, he told him, ‘to have found an opportunity to shift the guilt for the notorious weakness of your Ministry onto the shoulders of another.’ He would not stand for i t : the same day he wrote Lammers that in view of the impotence, ignorance, and inactivity of the Ostministerium he henceforth considered it his duty to act indepen­ dently, in accordance with Hitler’s wishes and the dictates of his conscience.3 Three days later, with the military situation rapidly worsening, his conscience, or more likely his sense of self-preservation, dictated his escape from Riga to the Reich without sanction from Berlin. To carry out what tasks remained, Hitler assigned Erich Koch, who earlier had lost his Ukrainian realm and was then raging in East Prussia, to take charge of the rump Ostland commissariat. In his own final report on Ostland, Rosenberg informed Hitler that Lohse’s 1 Bräutigam to R K O , Abt. I, August 4, 19 4 4 *; Dankers to Drechsler, M ay 18, 1944* ; Ldhse to Bräutigam, M ay 25, 1944*. 2 See Lohse to Bormann, March 25, 1944, Document N G -13 3 0 , N M T , xiii, 1068-9 ; Berger to Brandt, May 27, 1944, Document N O -276 8 * ; and Jeckeln’s ‘ total war mobilization’ for the Baltic area, Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland (Riga), July 18, 1944. 3 Lohse to Rosenberg, July 25, 1944, Himmler file 57*.

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flight had resulted from the ‘ poor relations between Reich Commissar Lohse and the Higher SS and Police Leader as well as leading agencies of the Wehrmacht’. Afraid of his own standing with the Führer, Rosenberg preferred to remain silent on his personal conflict with Lohse.1 Himmler, to whom Berger sent a carbon of the Rosen­ berg report, scoffed that Lohse’s defection was Rosenberg’s just reward for his own behaviour.2

Lohse’s rule had cost his subjects dearly, and the Germans, too. Less fanatical than Koch, more stupid perhaps than evil, he abhorred initiative and imagination. He proved himself pettily ambivalent about the realm entrusted to h im : proud of it and eager to build it up as his own empire, yet organically unable to understand or identify himself with the interests of his subjects. If, unlike Koch, he at times dimly perceived the maxim of ‘ not always hitting people over the head’, it in no way fostered a more enlightened or less supercilious policy. And even if, overcoming indolence and half­ heartedness, he had set out on a new course, it would have been towards a more glorious Third Reich — never towards a better future for the human beings he claimed to rule. Just as elsewhere on Soviet soil, three years of Nazi rule in the Baltic states had turned the mass of the population into foes of the Germans. Of the activists, thousands joined the legions which the Germans recruited to fight the Communists, but many more rose against the Nazis — without thereby endorsing Soviet rule. Object­ ively, Nazi rule in the Baltic region was a notch less oppressive than elsewhere; economic standards, cultural and political oppor­ tunities, and even the behaviour of the average German official were slightly better than on old Soviet, Slavic soil. But these privileges were too insignificant to stem the tide of anti-German feeling. Tragically, for the Baltic peoples the only alternative to German rule in 1944 was renewed Soviet conquest. 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Meldung für den Führer über den Stand der Verwaltung des Reichskommissariats Ostland\ September 13, 1944, Document N O -34 55*. 2 See also Himmler’s marginal notation, ‘ Untreue schlägt den eigenen Herren*. (Himmler file 5 7 #.)

C H A P T E R XI

B E L O R U S S IA We are enthusiastically received on all sides.— German S D report, July 1941 The basic attitude is one of deep resignation.— German informant, August 1942 In truth, the bulk of the population is hostile.— German Arm y report, October 1943

Belorussia and the Germans W e d g e d among Poles, Russians, and Balts, in the area between Brest and Gomel’, live a people which until recent years had been little known to the West. Alba Russia — White Russia — the foreign travellers had called the region, which was populated by the western-most branch of the Eastern Slavs. Ruled alternately by Lithuanians, Poles, and Russians, the Belorussian people has only in the past half-century begun to develop a national consciousness. ‘ Independent’ for but a fleeting and fictitious moment in 19 18 -19 , it was partitioned by the Treaty of Riga, with western Belorussia falling under Polish rule. In Soviet Belorussia, anti-Communism had been strong among both the peasant mass and the thin intellectual stratum; yet a generation of Soviet rule which had brought about the liquidation of heterodox elements, fostered national culture, and elevated Belo­ russia to the formal status of a Union Republic had left its mark. By 1941 anti-Soviet feeling appeared to be rooted largely in social and economic grievances. Not so west of the pre-1939 border, where Polish policy had provoked the growth of Belorussian counter­ nationalism, just as the Western Ukraine had become the hotbed of ardent Ukrainian nationalism. Its geographic location put Belorussia in the path of the planned German advance. As early as March 1941 Keitel’s directives on military government assigned it to the area to be occupied by Army Group Centre.1 This was virtually the last time that Belorussia was officially referred to by that name (or rather, its German equiva­ lent, Weissrussland). As soon as Rosenberg took a hand in ‘ Eastern planning’, he, typically enough, seconded the efforts of nationalist emigres to underscore the differences between Belorussians and 1 Keitel, ‘ Richtlinien auf Sondergebieten zur Weisung Nr. 2 1 March 13, 19 4 1, Document 447-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 55.

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Great Russians. Henceforth the name of the country, in Nazi parlance, was Weissruthenien, or White Ruthenia.1 Since in Rosenberg’s scheme of things Moscow was the primary threat, Belorussia (like the Ukraine) was to be enlarged eastwards at the expense of Great Russia. His earliest memorandum spoke of extending its borders ‘ to within 250 kilometres of Moscow’ , so as to include parts of the thoroughly Great Russian Orel and Kalinin oblasts. Smolensk would become its capital.12 His plans went even further. Though intent on stimulating a national consciousness among the Belorussians, he did not entirely trust their anti-Russian zeal. He therefore proposed to settle ‘ undesirable’ Poles in the Smolensk area so as to create a buffer [.Zwischenschicht] between Belorussians and Great Russians — Poles who could be counted upon to hate both their new neighbours.3 That his plan for calculated aggrandizement was more than a momentary pipe-dream is shown by subsequent references to it.4 Yet the project, though accepted in principle, remained on paper. The area placed under civil government included only the formerly Polish provinces (minus Bialystok) and a part of the Belorussian SS R around Minsk ; its eastern oblasts, such as Vitebsk and Gomel’, and the adjacent Russian territory slated to be incorporated into ‘ Greater White Ruthenia’ remained under military administration.5 1 T h e use of this term (‘ Ruthenian* being nothing but an outdated, Romanized version of ‘ Russian*) was introduced earlier by some of the emigres in Central Europe ; the most fanatical even sought to revive the name of one of the three tribes from which Belorussia had been formed, the Krivichi, and referred to Belo­ russia as ‘ Kryvia*. The purpose of this change in nomenclature on the part of the Germans was admitted by Eugen von Engelhardt, a Baltic German who, after directing a Nazi institute on anti-Semitism, wrote the only contemporary German history of Belorussia : ‘ The form, “ Weissruthenien** . . . [was revived] in order to differentiate from the Great Russians and Great Russia (in the ethno­ graphic sense) and from the Russian Empire in general*. (Engelhardt, Weissruthenien [Berlin : Volk und Reich, 1943], p. 18.) 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 1 *, April 2, 1941, Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 548. 3 Rosenberg, ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar im Ostland*, M ay 8, 19 41, Document 1029-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 575. 4 According to a semi-official survey, Belorussia was to contain five ‘ Main Districts* [Hauptgebiete] : Minsk, Baranoviche, Mogilev, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. (Gerhard von Mende, ‘ Das Reichskommissariat Ostland*, Jahrbuch der Welt­ politik [Berlin, 1942], p. 164.) In 1943 Engelhardt spoke openly of ‘ parts of Kalinin, Smolensk, and Orel* as due to be added to Belorussia (op. cit. pp. 2 2 1, 277). Even this was not nearly so much as the most visionary £migr£ demands, which ranged from Kaluga to Lake Ilmen and an outlet to the Baltic Sea near Leningrad. (Mykola Abramchik, Historija Bietarusi u kartach [Berlin : Bielaruski Kamitet Samapomacy, 1942].) 5 See map, p. 202. T he southern strip of the Belorussian S S R was to be transferred to the more favoured Ukraine. (See Document 10 33-P S *.) On the transfer of Bialystok to Koch*s domain, see p. 90 above.

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While its geographic location made Belorussia a ‘ necessary’ area of conquest and a link in the perimeter of non-Russian satrapies which Rosenberg sought to erect around Great Russia, population and economy made Belorussia a less important object of German control. Except for peat and lumber it had few natural resources of value to the Reich; its industry was not to be furthered, on the principle that this would violate Nazi considerations of rational and political selection.1 Moreover, its Slavic population was by definition part of the Untermensch world, and was considered to be racially closer to the Great Russians than to the preferred Ukrainians. ‘ In general,’ a sympathetic observer wrote, ‘ the future of Belorussian, or “ Kryvian” , nationality is at present uncertain; according to sceptics, it is even thoroughly dubious.’ 2 For Rosenberg, Belo­ russia ‘ culturally as well as economically constitutefd] a very much retarded part of the U .S .S .R .’ 3 Hence, even while scheduled for aggrandizement, it was to become a dumping ground for undesirables. Already strongly ‘ permeated’ with Jews, it would in the future be ‘ a necessary extension [of the Baltic provinces] for the disposal of unwanted humanity’.4 Rosenberg would transfer there (‘ a part o f’, he added in the typescript) ‘ those elements who will be exiled from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Polish part of the Wartheland’.5 In the following year, the Germans did indeed move into Belorussia various groups of ‘ undesirables’, ranging from German Jews to Great Russians evacuated westwards from the combat zone. The intrinsic conflict between the two contradictory German policies — making Belorussia a part of the ‘ live wall ’ against Muscovy and artificially stimulating nationalism there, or reducing it to a continental dumping ground — was never resolved. Likewise, con­ fusion reigned over the political status to be accorded the area. In a few instances, reference was made to eventual ‘ statehood’.6 More 1 Engelhardt, op. cit. pp. 12 ff ; Walter Zimmermann, ed., A u f In f ormotionsfahrt im Ostland (Riga : R K O , 1944), PP- 19-20. 2 Percy Meyer, ‘ Die Weissruthenen’ , Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), November 1941, p. 10. See also Friedrich Klau, ‘ Europas unbekanntestes Volk*, A u f Informationsfahrt im Ostland, pp. 77-82. 3 Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 549. 4 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’ [April 7, 1941], Document i o i 8 -P S #, p. 21. For Hitler’s implicit approval, see H T T , p. 87. 5 Document 1029-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 575. See also Rosenberg, speech, June 20, 1941, Document 1058-PS, T M W C , xxvi, 618. Wartheland was the name given to the former province of Posen (Poznan), which was enlarged by the addition of parts of Lodz province. 6 The otherwise well-informed Grosskopf naively told his superiors at the Foreign Office before the invasion that Rosenberg contemplated ‘ an independent White Ruthenian state under German leadership’ extending to the Valdai Mountains. (Grosskopf to Weizsäcker and Ribbentrop, June 4, 1941, Document N G -4 6 33 *.)

io.

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Belorussia

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often emphasis was placed on continuing German control, whether as a ‘ protectorate’ or with ‘ autonomy’. Formal decisions were never reached, let alone announced to the country’s inhabitants. Rosenberg’s thoughts seem to have concerned themselves less with Belorussia than with any other area to be seized. Its ambiguous status was reinforced by the decision to make it, incongruously enough, one of the four constituent regions of the Reich Commissariat Ostland. Though intended to be inferior to the Baltic provinces, Belorussia technically received co-equal status as a General Commissariat under Lohse’s rule.1 The ‘ co-equality’ ended here. Almost from the outset, Belorussia was politically, economically, and culturally all but isolated from the three com­ missariats to the north; and the General Commissar in Minsk enjoyed prerogatives far more extensive than his opposite numbers in Kiev and Kaunas. As events unfolded, it became clear that little German love was lost on Belorussia.12 The participants of an SS conference on re­ settlement in the summer of 1942 found that Hitler’s plan to Ger­ manize the East within a generation was well applicable to Belorussia since it possessed ‘ no intellectual class and no political ambitions’.3 The official publication of the RKO was constrained to admit that ‘ undoubtedly [German] paeans of praise for Belorussia are scarce’ .4 Kube and the S S At the famous conference of July 16, 1941, at which the command jobs in the civil administration were distributed, Rosenberg sub­ mitted the name of Wilhelm Kube for General Commissar of Belorussia. Hitler’s tentative suggestion that Kube be assigned to Moscow was opposed by both Goring and Rosenberg: each of them had someone else in mind for that prize. And so Kube received the secondary assignment to Minsk without great ado or 1 A t one time, the German commissars of the three Baltic states were to be given different titles from that reserved for the ruler of Belorussia. (Rosenberg, appendix to ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2*, April 7, 19 4 1, Document 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 555 ; Document 10 58-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 623.) 2 T h e best which friendly observers found to say was that the people were very ‘ good-natured, obedient, and moral*. (Adolf Ruploh, ‘ Weissruthenien bereichert die europäische Landwirtschaft*, Walter Zimmermann, ed., A u f Informationsfahrt im Ostland, p. 212.) 3 Conference at FH Q , ‘ Aktennotiz*, August 17, 1942, Document N O -270 3*. See also Mende, op. cit. p. 162 ; Gustav Fochler-Hauke, ed., Schi-Jäger am Feind (Heidelberg: Vowinckel, 1943), pp. 2 3 - 4 ; Werner Hasselblatt, ‘ Das weissruthenische Bauemvolk*, Nation und Staat (Vienna), xvi, no. 1 (October 1942), pp. 6 -12 ; Berliner Börsenzeitung, Ju ly 22, 1942. 4 ‘ West-Weissruthenien*, Ostland (Riga), 1943, no. 8, pp. 27-8.

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enthusiasm.1 As of September 1941, Belorussia up to the Berezina River was transferred to civilian rule, which Kube took over from Army Group Centre. For many years a Nazi member of the Reichstag, Kube had been Gauleiter of Kurmark and, after Hitler’s accession to power, Ober­ präsident of Brandenburg and West Prussia. Prior to the war, however, he had been ‘ retired’ and temporarily jailed because of various scandals and attempted political blackmail. Recalled to active work in 1941, he was pleased to find in Belorussia a new field of endeavour. Unlike his neighbour in the Ukraine, he condescendingly ‘ liked’ the ‘ blondies and blue-eyed Aryans’ who came under his rule. He spoke of rearing them to maturity, out of the ‘ tutelage of the Bolshevik Muscovites and the feudal Polish landowners’ .2 Stressing the fact that they had never been ruled or contaminated by the Mongols, he compared their history with that of the Irish. In strongly anti-Russian and anti-Semitic terms, he recounted their fate, only to conclude in good Nazi style : We offer the White Ruthenians no parliamentary nonsense and no democratic hypocrisy. We offer them our own destiny: progress, culture, soil, and bread, through labour, discipline, and morals. . . .3 If, however, Kube took at least some interest in his ‘ step­ children’, he was determined not to let them become ‘ dangerous’. ‘ The White Ruthenians shall become a “ nation” only to the extent that they shall be capable of forming a wall against Muscovy and the Eastern steppe.’ 4 What concerned Kube most was his own welfare. He was one of the corrupt Nazi Goldfasanen who made the most of their novel status of colonial ‘ viceroys’. Vodka and beer; delicacies of the palate; Belorussian peasant girls as servants; a splendid home for himself, its fa£ade adorned with the inscription, G E N E R A L K O M ­ M IS S A R IA T in huge letters — these were the outward trimmings of his reign. Kube’s staff consisted of woefully unprepared personnel. Nazi waiters and dairy men, yesterday’s clerks and superintendents, 1 [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk’ , Ju ly 16, 19 41, Document 2 2 1 -L , T M W C , xxxviii, 94-5. Probably unfamiliar with the existence or location of Belorussia, Bormann spoke of it in the protocol as ‘ the western part of Baltenland’. 2 Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), p. 170 ; Helmuth Heiber, ed., ‘ Aus den Akten des Gauleiters K u b e’ , Vierteljahrs­ hefte für Zeitgeschichte, iv, no. 1 (January 1956), 77-8. 3 Minsker Zeitung (Minsk), Ju ly 4, 1 9 4 2 ; also ‘ Belarusy — ne raseitsy’, Belaruskaia Hazeta (Minsk), Ju ly 8, 1942. 4 Kube, speech, Ju ly 7, 1942, E A P 99/62*, C R S . See also interview G -8 ; and Kube, ‘ Hod niametskaha stsyvil’naha kiraünitstva’, Belaruskaia Hazeta, September 3, 1942.

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graduates of quick training courses, or, at best, of the famous Nazi Ordensburgen, they now found themselves dizzy with power, selfassured yet utterly unfit for their jobs. In practice, Kube’s instruc­ tions were often disregarded by his subordinates, especially by the Gebietskommissare outside of Minsk.1 Much of Kube’s work was routine and consisted in the proclama­ tion of decrees and directives that followed the general lines laid down in Berlin or Riga. At an early point, however, he found himself embroiled in controversy with other German agencies, notably the SS. Before the transfer of Belorussia to civil rule, the Army and SS had both condoned considerable abuse by their forces there. Accounts of German atrocities throughout Ostland not only spread among the civilian population like wildfire but also became known in Berlin.12 Moreover, the SS, in an unforeseen sally for authority, unceremoniously proceeded to extend its hold over the Eastern economy by requisitioning various industrial and commercial enter­ prises. After some protests Goring yielded and made the SS the custodian of a variety of factories; in addition, ‘ I have asked the Reich Commissar for Ostland’, he informed Himmler, ‘ to handle your requests for the supply and disposal of service and consumer goods with the requisite understanding . . .’ 3 Lohse and Kube strongly resented this ‘ empire-building’ which impinged on their authority. The contest with the SS unexpectedly took an even more acute form in connection with the Jewish question. Almost all the artisans in Belorussia were Jews, and their sudden ‘ liquidation’ contemplated by the SD would have struck a serious blow to German plans for exploiting the economy. Not that Kube had any compassion for the Je w s; as a convinced Nazi he fully subscribed to Lohse’s directives for a drastic ‘ solution’ of the Jewish question. But when the SS pushed ahead with its measures of violence, he emerged as a proponent of economic pragmatism in opposition to the fanatical hangmen. The conflict was purely tactical.4 1 Kleist, op. cit. p. 173. 2 As early as July 10, Rosenberg received a detailed report on the abuse to which Soviet prisoners were exposed in a camp near Minsk. (Dorsch to Rosenberg, July 10, 1941, Document 022-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 81-3.) 3 Goring to Himmler, August 26, 1941, Document N O -10 19 *. 4 See Lohse, 'Vorläufige Richtlinien für die Behandlung der Juden im Gebiet des Reichskommissariats Ostland’, August 13, 19 41, Document 113 8 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 19 ff.; Einsatzgruppe A , 'Gesamtbericht bis zum 15. Oktober 1941 *, Docu­ ment 180 -L , T M W C , xxvii, 6 70 -717 ; Gerald Reitlinger, 'T h e Doubts of Wilhelm Kube*, Wiener Library Bulletin (London), no. 4 (1950) and no. 5 (19 51) ; and Walter Schimana, affidavit, Document N O K W -79 7*. On K ube’s own profound anti-Semitism, see Heiber, op. cit. pp. 68, 72.

G.R.R.— P

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Rosenberg, an enthusiastic advocate of the extermination of the Jews, found other grounds to oppose the S S on this question. In mid-October 1941 he forwarded to Lammers the complaints of Lohse and Kube about the SS which, he stated, ‘ had confiscated and taken away large amounts of gold and silver’. What annoyed him was neither the anti-Jewish action nor even the arbitrary con­ fiscations but rather that the SS was ‘ issuing decrees on its own’ when he alone was to have legislative power in the East.1 Meanwhile the SS complained that Lohse had forbidden one of its many executions. When Leibbrandt asked Lohse for clarifica­ tion, implying endorsement of the liquidation orders, the Reich Commissar replied on an interesting note : I have forbidden the wild executions of Jews in Libava [Liepaja] because they could not be tolerated in the form in which they were carried out. I ask to be informed whether your inquiry of October 31 is to be interpreted as an instruction that all Jews in Ostland are to be liquidated ? Should this take place without regard for age and sex and economic interests (for instance, the Wehrmacht’s need of specialists in armament plants) ? 2 After dealing with the matter orally in the interim, the OMi replied a month later that ‘ in principle economic considerations must be overlooked in the solution of the problem. In general, any question which may arise is to be solved on the spot, together with the Higher SS and Police Leader.’ 3 While the Ostministerium by and large backed the extermination policy, some of the men in the field continued to dissent. Kube himself deplored not the revolting occurrences but their effect: ‘ With such methods one cannot keep order and quiet in Belorussia’ . The sort of problem he had in mind was well illustrated by the report of the District Commissar in Slutsk. Despite the fact that the ‘ Jewish artisans simply cannot be spared because they are indis­ pensable to the maintenance of the economy’, a police battalion fetched and carted off all the Jews. . . . [It was claimed] that this purge must take place for political reasons, and economic considerations had never yet played a role. . . . With indescribable brutality on the part of 1 Rosenberg to Lammers, October 14, 19 4 1, Document N G -16 8 3 * . 2 Sensing the danger of being labelled ‘ Judeophile’, Lohse added as an after­ thought : ‘ O f course Ostland’s purification of Jews is an urgent task ; but its solution must be brought into harmony with the exigencies of the*war economy’ . (Leibbrandt to Lohse, October 3 1 , 1941 ; Lohse to Rosenberg, November 15, 19 4 1, Document 36 6 3-P S, T M W C , xxxii, 435-6.) 3 Bräutigam to Lohse, December 18, .19 4 1, Document 3666-P S, T M W C , xxxii, 437. For additional details, see Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution (New York : Beechhurst, 1953), pp. 2 18 -2 7 .

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German policemen as well as Lithuanian partisans [organized by the German SS], the Jewish people, including Belorussians, too, were brought together from their apartments. There was shooting all over town, and corpses of dead Jews piled up in several streets. . . . Besides the fact that the Jews, including the artisans, were mistreated with frightful roughness before the eyes of the Belorussians, the Belorussians, too, were ‘ worked over ’ with rubber belts and rifle butts. There is no more question of an [anti-] Jewish action. Much rather, it looked like a revolution. The official continued with gory details of persons being buried alive and of outrageous plundering by the police. ‘ The Belorussian people,’ he summarized his impressions, ‘ which had gained con­ fidence in us, have been stupefied.’ He pleaded in conclusion : ‘ In the future, by all means spare me this police battalion ! ’ 1 It took a number of such conflicts — and they multiplied rapidly — to move Rosenberg into challenging Himmler to a discussion of his legal prerogatives. The case that spurred him to action was a report from Minsk in February 1942. According to a German inspector, In January 1942 the SD one day took about 280 civilian prisoners from the prison in Minsk, led them to a ditch, and shot them. Since the capacity of the ditch was not exhausted, another thirty prisoners were pulled out and also shot. . . . Among these there was a Belorussian who in November 1941 had been turned in to the police for violating the curfew by fifteen minutes . . . [and] twenty-three Polish skilled workers sent to Minsk from one of the towns of the Government-General to relieve the shortage of specialists. They had been billeted in jail according to instructions of the police commander because allegedly there were no other billeting facilities. Rosenberg sent the full report to Lammers with an insistent demand for clarification. Again skirting the substance of the problem, he complained : ‘ It impinges most emphatically upon the responsibility entrusted to me by the Führer for the administration of the occupied Eastern territories ’. The SS, of course, was not dismayed. The chief of the RSH A, Reinhard Heydrich, brazenly retorted that the Minsk dispatch was in large measure false ; the executions were due to a danger of epidemics, which could not be combated otherwise ‘ because of a lack of cyanide’ . The victims, moreover, had been arrested ‘ in connection’ with local unrest.12 1 Carl to Kube, October 30, 1941 ; Kube to Lohse, November 1, 19 4 1, Document 110 4 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 1-8. 2 Hänsel to Rosenberg, ‘ Anlage zum Reisebericht’ , March 3, 19 4 2 * ; Rosen­ berg to Lammers, March 10, 19 4 2 * ; Heydrich to Meyer, March 26, 19 4 2 *, Engl, trans. (British Foreign Office, PID ), H L .

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The old differences remained uncomposed, and new ones arose continuously.1 Himmler grew impatient and was eager to put Rosenberg in his place. Finally he asked the Ostministerium to let him handle his own men as he saw fit, for ‘ Rosenberg is no soldier, and we don’t expect him to be one’.2 Between October 1941 and February 1942, thousands of Jews were shipped to Belorussia from the W est: the General Com­ missariat continued to figure as the ‘ garbage heap’.3 The process of transfer was suspended after the Army had protested that all the available rolling stock was needed to bring reinforcements to the hard-pressed Eastern front.4 Reluctantly the SS agreed. There were also other difficulties. The Einsatzgruppe, which earlier had considered any mitigation ‘ out of the question’, was constrained to admit that ‘ the final and decisive elimination of the Jews remaining in Belorussia is encountering certain difficulties’. By spring 1942 ‘ only’ 42,000 out of 170,000 had been killed. It is precisely here [wrote SS General Stahlecker] that the Jews form an extraordinarily high percentage of specialists who cannot be spared because of the absence of other reserves. Furthermore, Einsatzgruppe A took over the area only after the severe frosts set in, which made mass executions more difficult to carry out. . . .5 Yet it took only a few months to complete the liquidations. By the end of July 1942 Kube announced proudly that ‘ in the past ten weeks we have liquidated about 50,000 Jews in Belorussia. In the rural areas of Minsk, Jewry has been eradicated without jeopardizing the labour situation.’ Far from protesting the anti-Jewish action, Kube now reported it with satisfaction and pride. His continued protests against the arrival of further Jewish contingents were due largely to the new problem which had emerged : the considerable 1 See also above, p. 196 ; and Himmler file 1 1 * . 2 Himmler to Meyer, April 2, 1942, Himmler file 57 *. The S D in Minsk was instructed to keep an eye on Kube because of his ‘ softness \ 3 In mid-December Kube asked Lohse for instructions on the handling of Jews brought to Belorussia from Germany. T hey included ‘ veterans of World W ar I with Iron Crosses, war casualties, half-Aryans, even three-quarter Aryans*. On his own, he refused to hand them over to the S D : ‘ I am surely hard and prepared to help solve the Jewish question, but men who come from our own culture are something different from the indigenous animal-like hordes. . . . I ask you . . . to give the instructions to do what is necessary in the most humane form.’ (Kube to Lohse, December 16, 1941, Document 36 6 5-P S *.) 4 T h e evacuees came from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. See Documents 2 2 7 3-P S , T M W C , xxx, 78-80 ; 3663-P S, T M W C , xxxii, 435-6 ; 3 9 2 1-P S , T M W C , xxxiii, 535 ; Occ E 3a-6#, Y IV O ; and Reitlinger, op. cit. pp. 91 - 5 5 Einsatzgruppe A [Report on Exterminations], n.d., Document 22 73-P S , T M W C , xxx, 76-9.

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growth of the partisan movement. By their increased activity the partisans had deflected Kube’s attention from the Jewish question and, perhaps unwittingly, had doomed the Jews to prompt extermi­ nation. From the summer of 1942 on, the SD no longer wanted to delay the liquidation of Jews. ‘ I need the SD one hundred per cent against the [Soviet] partisans and against the Polish resistance move­ ment,’ Kube w rote; ‘ both of them tie up all the forces of the not overly strong security units.’ 1 The Second Front By mid-1942 the Soviet partisan movement, almost completely ineffective during the first months of the war, had reached the proportions of a sizeable force, well over 100,000 strong. It became, to use Stalin’s phrase, a second front in the enemy’s rear. The startling metamorphosis from early failure to sudden growth was due to three sets of factors : the injection of systematic Soviet aid, leadership, supplies, and air support from the winter of 19 4 1-2 o n ; the relative scarcity of German troops, especially in difficult terrain ; and the influx of personnel to the surviving or newly-created under­ ground nuclei on occupied soil. At first stragglers from the Red Army cut off during the huge German encirclements, and then increasingly the rank-and-file peasant population flocked to the partisans — some, to escape German recruitment; others, under duress; still others, because they no longer believed in German victory and wished to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Soviet authorities. At first Soviet persuasion had fallen on deaf ears, but, after a winter that had stopped the German advance, had reduced many of the indigenous residents to near famine, and had spread abroad the news of German abuses, many were prepared to admit their initial ‘ error’ of hoping for a better, freer, more plentiful life under the New Order. Imperceptibly but relentlessly the balance was shifting against the Germans.2 The German security forces behind the front were woefully inadequate in size and quality. In areas where terrain — especially forests and swamps — offered opportunities for concealment, partisan bands of up to regiment and brigade strength emerged; their classical territory was Belorussia and the adjacent region of Army Group Centre, down to the forests of Briansk and the lowlands of Polotsk. By concentrating on the systematic demolition of German supply lines, the disruption of German food and manpower requisi­ tions, and the infliction of casualties on German and collaborating 1 Kube to Lohse, Ju ly 3 1, 1942, Document 3428-P S, T M W C , xxxii, 280-2. 2 On the early phase of partisan and anti-partisan warfare, see also above, p. 74.

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officials, the bands, which at first had been considered more a nuisance than a danger, quickly became the object of serious German attention. Outward evidence of this was given in the reorganization decreed in August 1942. Anti-partisan warfare was placed under the juris­ diction of the Army Operations Sections, from the High Command down. Centralized planning and intelligence concerning the partisans were ordered. And by his Directive No. 46 Hitler person­ ally vested responsibility for the operational areas in the General Staff; in the rear and particularly in the zones of civil administration, the S S obtained over-all command and responsibility for the extermination of partisans.1 While an effort was made to ‘ enlist the indigenous population’ to fight them, the official prescription was to eradicate partisans and sympathizers, not to win them and the civilian population to the German side by a new and positive programme. In October 1942 Hitler reiterated the necessity of ruthlessness. ‘ Only in those instances where the anti-partisan struggle was begun and carried out with ruthless brutality has success not failed to obtain. . . . The struggle against the partisans in the entire East is a life-and-death struggle in which one side or the other must be exterminated.’ 2 Indeed, the operations waged against the partisans were dis­ tinguished by startling brutality. Whole villages suspected of harbouring sympathizers were burned down; in other instances, the entire male population was evacuated by the Germans. The evidence suggests that civilians, often entirely unconnected with the partisans, were more frequently the victims of German raids than were the fast-moving and well-concealed bands.3 The ‘ lack of 1 Hitler, ‘ Weisung Nr. 46 : Richtlinien für die verstärkte Bekämpfung des Bandenunwesens im Osten’ , August 18, 1942, Document 4 7 7 -P S * (also N O i66 6 #). Prior to this order, the S S had taken an increasing part in anti-partisan warfare. However, Himmler was not above playing politics with the issue. On March 3 1 , 1942, he replied as follows to an O K H request to place his police units in the East at the disposal of the hard-pressed Arm y commanders : (1) I confirm receipt of your letter of 3/28/42. (2) I cannot place further units at your disposal. (3) If the Commander of the Arm y Group Rear Areas wishes to fight the partisans, he should approach the Higher S S and Police Leader [in his area]. (4) I suggest that you give some thought for once to the fact that in the long run it is impossible to request simultaneously the transfer of police and auxiliary units to the front and to the army group rear areas ; the same people can be used only once at a given time.

H. H immler

2 Hitler, directive, October 18, 19 42*, H L . 3 T h e most detailed and reliable material on the Soviet partisan movement is contained in the studies of the W ar Documentation Project of Columbia University, Bureau of Applied Social Research (U .S. Air Force, Human Resources Research Institute, 1954-5).

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sophistication’ (as one German report put it) shown in slashing in­ discriminately through the countryside became particularly apparent when the SS gained control of the operations. In the wake of Hitler’s order of August 1942, the SS and Police Leader for the Rear Area of Army Group Centre, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who had already gained some experience in ‘ handling’ partisans, suggested to Himmler without undue modesty that he be appointed inspector of all anti-partisan warfare in the East. At the end of October he was indeed named SS plenipotentiary for this purpose, and in December a special staff was established under his command with the approval of the O KW .1 Keitel passed on the word that ‘ in this struggle the troops have the right and the duty to use any means conductive to success — even against women and children’ . This was in line with Hitler’s own attitude. He thought highly of Bach, ‘ one of the cleverest persons ’ whom he used only ‘ for the most difficult things’, and he sanctioned any action in the struggle against Soviet guerrillas, even if it was ‘ not exactly in accordance with regulations’ .2 The application of such instructions was more startling in its effect on the civilians than on the partisans. Often themselves victims of partisan raids and requisitions, largely peasants who had welcomed the end of Soviet collective farms, they were now subjected to abuse and extermination at the hands of the Germans and collaborators. Complaints about such procedures were widespread within the administration. Not only did indigenous officials forward numerous memoranda to this effect, but various German functionaries and officers stressed the suicidal results of an out-and-out terror policy. Agricultural officials complained that peasants were not delivering their quotas; labour recruitment personnel reported that local residents preferred joining the partisans in the woods to being drafted for service in Germ any; propaganda teams admitted that no mellifluous words could counter the population’s sorry experiences which were aptly exploited in Soviet psychological warfare. Even higher echelons of both military and civil government were con­ strained to object. Early in 1943, Rosenberg protested to Himmler personally against the indiscriminate burning of Ukrainian and Belorussian villages during German anti-partisan operations (though 1 Von dem Bach to Himmler, September 5, 1942, and Himmler, directive, October 23, 1942, Document N O - i 66 i # ; Keitel, ‘ Bandenbekämpfung’, December 16, 1942, Document 066-U K , T M W C , xxxix, 128-9 ; Jodi, testimony, T M W C , xv, 545 ; von dem Bach, testimony, T M W C , iv, 475-96. 2 FH Q , ‘ Lagebesprechung’ , December 1, 1942, Engl, trans. in Felix Gilbert, ed., Hitler Directs His War (New York : Oxford University Press, 1950), pp. 5-8.

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curiously raising no objections to the burning of Great Russian settlements); his main concern, he stated, was that such action provided enemy propaganda with material.1 Commenting on a major anti-partisan drive staged by the SS in co-operation with Army and indigenous police forces and leading to the death of thousands (including 5,000 ‘ suspected’ of abetting the partisans), Kube, for his part, emphatically complained: *The political effect of this enterprise on the peaceful population is disastrous because of the shooting of many women and children’ . Even Lohse agreed that the behaviour of the SS made it next to impossible to differen­ tiate between friend and foe. Moreover, he added, ‘ this method is not worthy of the German cause and does the greatest harm to our prestige’ .12 At just this time von dem Bach was appointed Chief of AntiPartisan Forces, and Hitler reiterated that ‘ the partisan question can be solved only by force’. According to Bormann, ‘ it has been established that precisely in those places where “ politically smart’ ’ generals are in command, the population has most to suffer from partisan activities’ . No change of directives was contemplated at the Fiihrer’s headquarters.3 Kube’s deputies, however, kept on protesting. One of them implored Berlin to postpone the next scheduled anti-partisan operation at least until the end of the harvest season. If the earlier ‘ psychological warfare’ arguments had failed to impress the policy­ makers, he hoped they might be more responsive to arguments that the planned drive would lead to the destruction of the major part of the crop.4 Step by step, the conflict between the General Com­ missariat in Minsk and the SS was assuming proportions reminiscent of the Rosenberg-Koch feud.5 It was essentially another struggle over tactics. Both agencies accepted the same goals and premises. But Kube and his men spoke up against indiscriminate retribution 1 Rosenberg to Himmler, February 4, 19 43*, H L . 2 Kube to Lohse, June 5, 1943, and Lohse to Rosenberg, June 18, 1943, Document 135 -R , T M W C , xxxviii, 3 7 1 -5 . This Operation ‘ Cottbus’ was commanded by S S Brigadeführer von Gottberg, who later became Kube’s successor. 3 Hewel, memorandum on conversation with Bormann, M ay 24, 1943, Docu­ ment N G -32 8 8 *. 4 Freitag to Riecke, June 28, 1943, Document 3000-PS, T M W C , xxxi, 467-8. 5 See, for instance, a 13-page blast by the S S against Kube, SiPo and S D Minsk [Ostuf. Strauch] to von dem Bach, July 25, 1943, Document N O -226 2*. It alleged that Kube was ‘ utterly incapable as an administrator and leader, hostile to the S S and Police, finally absolutely impossible in his attitude on the Jewish question’ . On the clash of Kube with von dem Bach on labour recruitment, see Berger to von dem Bach, August 1, 1943, Document N G -54 9 6 *.

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by terror. Herein lay a significant difference between his approach and Koch’s. By the summer of 1943, however, when the conflict reached its climax, it was too late. Objectively, neither policy could any longer have saved the day. Nationalists and Nazis In the same manner as they sought to utilize for their own ends the Ukrainian nationalists, recruited largely from the Polish-held provinces, German intelligence, propaganda, and political agencies tried to enlist the services of Western Belorussian politicians.1 Unlike their Polish fellow-soldiers, some 30,000 Belorussians captured in the German campaign against Poland in September 1939 were released; the Belorussian communities in the GovernmentGeneral were treated as desirable anti-Polish elements and received some priority in rations and employment. At the same time, efforts were made to secure the co-operation of Belorussian nationalist emigres in Prague and Paris.12 There was a Belorussian Nazi Party (PBNS) but it was so in­ significant that not even the Germans put any faith in it.3 The Abwehr, therefore, recruited other emigres for intelligence work.4 Still others advanced into occupied territory with the troops of Army Group Centre and with the SD Einsatzgruppen. But within a few days after arriving in Belorussia, some of them aroused the anger of their German masters. Like others who had begun by collaborating with the Germans, the initial enthusiasm of the more sensitive 1 On the eve of the war, a Belorussian Vertrauensstelle was set up under Gestapo auspices, and a Belorussian newspaper, Rattica, began publication in Berlin. 2 Most of the nationalist Belorussian Emigres had meanwhile either died or returned to the U .S .S .R . The formal leader of those remaining was Vasyl Zakharka, during the Civil War a member of the short-lived Belorussian Rada [Council]. According to Soviet sources, vehemently denied by his followers, he promptly acclaimed Hitler upon the German entry into Prague, where he resided. According to his colleagues, he was approached by a German diplomat, Andor Hencke, shortly before the attack on the U .S .S .R . but refused to give overt support. (L. Tsanava, Vsenarodnaia partizanskaia voina v Belorussii, ii [Minsk : Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo B S S R , 1951], 647 ; Leo Rydlevsky, Bielorussie [Paris : Symaniec, 1948], pp. 2 1 - 2 ; Engelhardt, op. cit. p. 2 1 5 ; Ludwig Golubovich, ‘ Okkupatsiia Belorussii*, M S #, pp. 3 - 4 ; interviews G -6, H-800.) The evidence on Zakharka’s attitude remains contradictory. For some details, see Nicholas P. Vakar, Belorussia (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 263. 3 This group, formed with German encouragement in 1933 under the leader­ ship of Fabian Akinshyts, a pathological fanatic, ex-Bolshevik turned fascist, and Vladislav Kazlouski (Kozlovskii), a second-rate writer, published a journal, N o vy S h lia kh , whose circulation did not exceed 500. 4 Three teams were actually sent across the border near Bialystok shortly before the invasion. T w o were reported promptly destroyed by Soviet border forces ; the third w'as caught the night before the invasion. (Golubovich, op. cit. p. 2.)

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nationalists waned with striking rapidity when they realized that the Germans were far from aiming at a free Belorussia.1 This realization stemmed from acquaintance with two sets of facts. On the one hand, German plans did not call for relinquishing control over any of the newly seized areas, Belorussia included. On the other, observers on the spot unanimously pointed to a striking weakness of separatism in the Soviet-held provinces of Belorussia. Rosjpiberg had been well aware of this. He recognized that the ‘ awakening of a distinct [national] life and the erection of a viable state structure’ in Belorussia was ‘ an extraordinarily slow and diffi­ cult undertaking’. None the less, he was determined to kindle nationalism here as elsewhere ‘ in view of the necessity of weakening the Russian heartland’.12 He recognized the difficulties : though granting that Bolshevism had suppressed what separatism had existed in the area, he ordered: ‘ Every autonomous Belorussian anti-Russian consciousness is to be furthered’ .34 German reports repeatedly drew attention to the striking differ­ ences between the formerly Polish areas and those which had been under Soviet rule for nearly a quarter of a century. In the former, the Germans were greeted ‘ for the greatest part as liberators, or at least with friendly neutrality ’ ; here there was even reason to believe that one could ‘ slowly try to foster a separate Belorussian popular consciousness’. In the eastern part, the situation was different: As a result of Russification, Communization, and among the rural elements forcible resettlement of ethnically alien groups on the collective farms, Belorussian national consciousness is scarcely, or but weakly, in evidence. By the time the Germans had reached Minsk, even the SD found that, although the people were often anti-Soviet, especially in the old Soviet-Russian area, Belorussian consciousness is all but extinct, and Belorussianism lives on among the broad mass of the population merely as a language.* On the whole, large segments of the population, though passive at first, did initially accept the Germans with high hopes. Almost 1 See Einsatzgruppen Reports, nos. 20 and 27 (July 12 and 19, 19 4 1)* ; Buchardt, pp. 29-30. 2 Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 549-50. 3 Document 1029-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 574, 575 n. 4 Einsatzgruppen Reports, Nos. 17, 21, 44, 50 (July 8 and 13, August 6 and 12, 19 4 1)*. T he dispatches from the group operating in Belorussia (and written by Artur Nebe, who was later implicated in the July 20, 1944 conspiracy) were generally more reliable than those from other areas.

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from the start, however, disillusionment set in. The mistreatment of prisoners of war, German failure to satisfy peasant desires for a thorough-going agrarian reform, and humiliation of groups and individuals alike were much in evidence. The positive attitude towards the Germans [the SS wrote, on a bitter note of denunciation against the Army] is being jeopardized by the indiscriminate requisitions by the troops, which become generally known, further by individual instances of rape, and by the way the Army treats the civilian population, which feels handled as an enemy people. Mass extermination of Jews by the action teams likewise instilled terror in the population — so much so that the SD itself admitted that ‘ the sharp measures against the Jews, especially the executions, have by now considerably increased the anti-German mood’. More­ over, the SD angrily acknowledged that ‘ because of the passivity and political stupidity of the Belorussians it has been virtually impossible to stage pogroms against the Jew s’. The postponement of further liquidations by the SS came after mid-August when the Army finally issued strict instructions to prohibit ‘ senseless’ requisitions. However, the initial weeks had sufficed to do irreparable harm to the German cause.1 In view of the faint echo which Belorussian separatism found among the population, it might have seemed logical to re-examine German policy which had been predicated on an extensive use of the nationalists. No such reassessment took place ; Rosenberg, for one, had not expected them to be popular in the first place. The numerous nationalists who arrived in Belorussia were permitted to take over choice positions in local government, economy, press, and police. Despite the limitations set for the activities of ‘ indigenous personnel’, many by their actions and attitudes aroused further popular resentment.12 It was perhaps natural under these conditions that differences should develop within nationalist circles. While convinced Belo­ russian fascists and various.opportunists continued to work closely with the Germans, others — precisely because they were intensely nationalistic — were bound to have mental reservations about ‘ un­ conditional collaboration’. If post-war accounts are credible, the 1 Einsatzgruppen Reports, Nos. 17, 2 1, 23, 3 1, 43, 50 (July 13, 15, 23, August 5 and 12, 19 4 1)*. For details, see Vakar, op. cit. ch. xii. 2 Local hostility centred particularly around the Western Belorussian national­ ists, many of whom had never before been in Soviet Belorussia. A n additional source of widespread conflict was the extensive German ‘ importation’ of Polish officials.

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first openly anti-German notes were sounded in clandestine national­ ist messages early in 1942.1 Within a few months, the ensuing differences led to a severe split in separatist cadres. The emergence of this fronde was indeed a surprise to the Ger­ mans ; both new clandestine groups, the ‘ Party of Belorussian Independence’ (BNP) and the Catholic ‘ People’s Front’ , consisted of men who initially had committed themselves to the German side.2 Now they weighed plans to rid themselves in the future of German overlordship. Plans even called for Belorussian participation in a *bloc of states which would be directed as much against Germany as against Great Russia’. A German SS officer who was personally acquainted with the problem later recalled that the SD learned of these plans and was painfully surprised since this group of ‘ conspirators’ consisted precisely of its own foster-children and advised against resorting to police measures. Such measures would have had fatal results for the ‘ new course ’ in Belorussia. One merely let the persons concerned know that their plans had become known to the Germans.3 For once, the police showed itself unusually circumspect and, from its point of view, was proved right. In the face of growing partisan activity, the anti-German nationalists represented only a minute threat to the Germans. More often than not, the BNP and People’s Front, operating in a strange twilight between legality and under­ ground, would swing to the German side when faced with the alternative of Communist capture. 1 Zakharka ostensibly replied to such an appeal in April 1942 by acclaiming the younger ‘ patriots’ who opposed the Germans as much as they rejected Russians, Poles, and Lithuanians. ‘ Belorussia has seen on its soil all sorts of Kulturträger who began by closing down Belorussian schools, but it has failed to see humane and just behaviour on their part. . . . Their denomination is piracy and pillage, against which all that is alive in Belorussia must protest.’ (French trans. in Rydlevsky, op. cit. p. 34.) While there is no documentary proof of this document’s authenticity, it is supported by an alleged eye-witness. (Interview H-800.) 2 The B N P was led by young Western Belorussians, a few of whom subsequently collaborated with the Communist underground in such operations as the assassina­ tion of Akinshyts early in 1943, while another wing strenuously opposed all contact with Soviet elements. The Catholic grouping was led by Father Vincent Godlevskii (Hadleüski), who had hoped to become a ‘ Belorussian T is o ’ but soon came to feel the anti-Catholicism of both the Nazi staff and of the pro-Nazi Belorussian collaborators. Dismissed from his job as head of the education section in Minsk, largely thanks to the efforts of the chauvinist, ultra-Orthodox head of the Minsk police, Iulian Sakovich, who worked closely with the SD , Godlevskii was killed by the Germans in December 1942. His death apparently spurred others to break with the Germans. (See Vakar, op. cit. pp. 189-90, 266-7 ; Tsanava, op. cit. i [i949]» 2 4 ; ‘ Ks. Vintsenty Hadleüski, asnavapalozhnik belaruskaha rezistanu’ , Belaruskiia Noviny [Paris], 1945, no. 1 ; Anton Adamovich, letter to author, February 22, 1954.) 3 Interview G -3.

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K ube: The End Unlike Koch, Kube wanted his subjects on his side. The realization that at least their passive support was needed came to him slowly, and he was at times reluctant to recognize it. In some respects he remained a fanatic to the end; in others, he was a corrupt opportunist. Initially, the share he was willing to give the indigenous popu­ lation in administrative and political life was minimal: it was limited largely to local government, press, auxiliary police, and some work in education. At the same time, he had no objections to the employment of Belorussian nationalists prepared to co-operate with the Reich — and there was always a hard core of willing helpers. The first manifest measure providing for indigenous participation in the New Order on a regional level was Kube’s sanctioning on October 22, 1941, of a Belorussian ‘ Self-Help’ organization (known in Belorussian as Samapomach, or by its official initials as BNS). Its original authority was minute, but it supplied the nationalists with a legal institution of their own, while the Germans hoped to use it as a vehicle for creating a reliable native instrumentality of control. Its head, Dr. Ivan Ermachenko, was an old emigre who, after fighting with General Wrangel’s Russian ‘ White’ Army in 1919, had become an ardent nationalist. Kube’s staff now groomed him for the role of Belorussian quisling; indeed, for his reputed compliance with German desires he became known among the Minsk populace as ‘ Herr Jawohl Ermachenko’. In June 1942 he was appointed chief speaker and adviser on Belorussian affairs to the General Commissar, and with his aides promptly appealed to the population to support the B N S and its various adjuncts.1 The BN S, however, appears to have found little support among the rank and file. A reputation for working blindly for the Germans and often for unbridled chauvinism was hardly a recommendation in the eyes of the Belorussian peasantry and of the starving city population. In the spring of 1943, when considerable abuse and graft were uncovered in the Samapomach, Ermachenko, charged with illegally transferring gold to Prague, was ousted and arrested.12 An opportunity was thus provided for a thorough clean-up 1 Relaruskaia Hazeta, Ju ly i, 4, September 3, and October 3 1, 1942 ; Adamo­ vich, op. cit. ; Tsanava, op. cit. ii, 649-53. 2 Interviews G -6, H-800 ; Golubovich, op. cit. p. 18 ; Buchardt, p. 160. Kube tried to save Ermachenko, allegedly his prot£g£, but the latter became the object of special surveillance, and later a bitter attack by the S S against Kube. See Document N O -2 2 5 2 *. On the failure of the B N S to find ‘ grass roots', see also Ehrenleitner to Kube, March 2 1, 1943, Document Occ E 3 a -i6 #, Y IV O ; and Documents file Occ E 3a-B ar#, Y IV O .

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among the indigenous administration and a revitalization of German appeals to the population. Yet German endeavours remained decidedly limited, and positive themes were almost entirely lacking. A demonstration staged in Minsk on Thanksgiving Day 1942 took place under the slogan, ‘ No more Jews, no more Bolsheviks, no more collective farms’. The country was offered the prospect of becoming ‘ part of Europe under the protection of the German Reich’ .1 Attempts to formulate a ‘ native ideology’ were restricted to expressions of a community of interest with the Reich against ‘ Muscovites, Poles, and Jew s’ .12 Under the impact of growing disaffection, Kube’s policy of token concessions was now carried a step further. When it was impressed upon him that ‘ the indigenous administration [had thus far] merely the task of carrying out the directives of the competent German agencies’, and ‘ until now the indigenous administration has been merely something of a sleuth-hound for the individual District Commissar — an untenable situation’, the Minsk administration agreed to invest the local officials with increased authority — more nominal than substantive, and more indicative of Kube’s attitude than of its effect on popular allegiance.3 He was now persuaded that German forces could not exercise effective control without enlisting the population. Indeed, the most tangible consideration in expanding the status of the BN S and in continued ‘ concessions’ to the collaborators — albeit by trifling measures — was the decision to recruit a corps of Belorussians to help in the struggle against the partisans. Announced in July 1942, the ‘ Belorussian Defence Corps’ (known by its Belorussian initials as BKA) was indeed fostered to the very end of the occupation; various German officials saw in it the only answer to the growing partisan strength; Hitler’s Directive No. 46 in effect sanctioned its establishment.4 Military necessity thus emerged as the sire of political concessions — a causal chain that was to play a prime role in the later stages of the war. These petty steps did not arrest the flood of defection. Entire districts were ‘ off limits ’ to the Germ ans; the partisans were in effect establishing their own administration, publishing decrees and 1 Belaruskaia Hazeta, October 3, 1942. 2 M . Volat, ‘ Novaia Belarus’ — novaia idealegiia’ , ibid. November 22, 1942, a rabidly anti-American and anti-Semitic piece. 3 Müller, ‘ Bericht Nr. 2 1 ’, October 8, 1942, Document Occ E 3a -7 #, Y IV O ; Golubovich, op. cit. pp. 1 4 -1 7 ; Ehrenleitner to Kube, op. cit. p. 6. See also Klau, op. cit. p. 77. 4 Document 4 7 7 -P S * ; ‘ Utvaren’ne Belaruskaha Korpusa Samaakhovy’ , Belaruskaia Hazetaf Ju ly 1, 1942 ; ‘ Belarusy!’, ibid. July 4, 1942.

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newspapers, and drafting men for military service. In addition to Fabian Akinshyts, a variety of other collaborators such as the editor of the semi-official Belaruskaia Hazeta, Vladislav Kazloüski, and the mayor of Minsk, Professor Ivanouski, were assassinated; so also were a number of German officials, ranging from the Gebiets­ kommissar of Minsk to the city commandant of Baranoviche, and including scores of agricultural personnel. Increasingly perturbed by the growing crisis, Kube decided to take two more steps in line with his new tactic of boosting the reliable separatists. On June 27, 1943, he announced the formation of an indigenous ‘ Council of Men of T ru st’ {Rada Daveru), to act as an advisory body to him personally. Its functions were largely symbolic and ceremonial but included advising Kube on matters of local government and education. The same week the formation of a Belorussian nationalist youth movement (known by its Belorussian initials as SBM ) was proclaimed.1 Both were to help bolster the furious but futile fight against the guerrillas and especially to counter the growing support they received from the rank and file. The mood of crisis could not be overcome by such transparent tokens. In early September 1943, a German office in Minsk was dynamited by Soviet agents. Retribution by the SD was sudden and swift. In the words of a German report, ‘ the residents of the two streets were summarily arrested and shot . . . 300 men, women, and children were arbitrarily rounded u p ’. Those shot included employees of German agencies, a group ‘ overwhelmingly antiBolshevik and in sympathy with, or neutral towards, Germany’. Minsk was on the verge of revolt. A subsequent German report summarized the attitude of the average citizen : If I stay with the Germans, I shall be shot when the Bolsheviks come ; if the Bolsheviks don’t come, I shall be shot sooner or later by the Germans. Thus if I stay with the Germans, it means certain death; if I join the partisans, I shall probably save myself.2 The stage was set for the climax. On September 22, 1943, Kube himself was blown to pieces by a mine concealed in his bed by a Belorussian servant girl who for several years had enjoyed his full trust.3 1 R M fdbO ., Propaganda-Dienst, no. 29, September 29, 1943, p. 1 1 ; Tsanava, op. cit. ii, 655, 663 ; interview G -6. A t the same time the Germans claimed to •have uncovered caches of weapons and Bolshevik propaganda following a complete search of all buildings and residents of Minsk. (Transocean News, June 4, 1943.) 2 R M fV u P ., file 2Ö/44g. Ost, Document Occ E 4 -1 *, Y IV O . 3 Schröter to Taubert, September 29, 19 4 3*, ibid. ; Wilfred von Oven, M it Goebbels bis zum Ende (Buenos Aires : Dürer-Verlag, 1950), ii, 1 1 2 . Soviet accounts have been strikingly reticent in discussing the Kube assassination. A

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Kube was the highest-ranking German official thus to perish in the war. His death caused a new stir among the population. It terrified the collaborators, encouraged the anti-German activists, and helped convince the fence-sitters that the days of German glory were past. The Propaganda Ministry in Berlin commented realistically, on the basis of dispatches received from Minsk : Once one gets to the point where our awkward policy uproots the huge and heavy mass of neutrals who want to risk nothing, then one gets a popular movement that cannot be suppressed unless one has an over­ powering police machine, and such a machine Germany does not possess.1 This very realization of German weakness had induced Kube to launch his belated and half-hearted efforts to gain the confidence of his much-abused subjects. Not long before his death, Kube had expounded his new tactics in a thorough report to Alfred Meyer, Rosenberg’s deputy. In it he attributed popular discontent to un­ certainty about German plans for the future. In the face of doubts and diversion, German ‘ radical measures’ had failed. ‘ To my mind’, Kube continued, ‘ the problems of the East cannot be solved by military means alone.’ Instead he urged an expansion of indi­ genous armed forces and, parallel to their growth, further token reforms that, he hoped, would give the people a sense of responsi­ bility and a stake in the regime.2 His own end symbolized the futility of this approach. Puppets and Patriots The first task for the Germans was to replace Kube. One candidate for the job was Arno Schickedanz, the commissardesignate for the Caucasus, whose dreams of grandeur had vanished with the German retreat early in 1943. Rosenberg, already em­ battled on all sides, was hesitant about suggesting his name. ‘ Rosen­ berg does not wish to submit this proposal to the Führer’, Berger informed Himmler, ‘ until he is certain that Schickedanz is acceptable to the Führer.’ Like the rest of the SS, Berger considered ‘ Schickedanz’s appointment to Minsk as unsuitable’.3 credible version is M . Marina, ‘ Geroinia 'otechestvennoi voiny’ , Rabotnitsa (Moscow), 1947, no. 2, pp. 1 1 - 1 3 . The £migr£ account by Mikhail Soloviev (M. Bobrov), in ‘ Strashnoe bezmolvie Rossii’, Vozrozhdenie (Paris), vi (NovemberDecember 1949), 137-40, and his When the Gods Are Silent (New York : M cK ay, 1953), Chapter X V , are fictitious. See also the claims of an M V D defector to have engineered the assassination, Nikolai E. Khokhlov, ‘ I would not murder for the Soviets’ , Saturday Evening Post, November 20, 1954, p. 124. 1 Taubert, memorandum, October 23, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - 1 * , Y IV O . 2 Kube to Meyer, August 27, 1943, E A P 99/385*, C R S. 3 Berger to Himmler, October 19, 1943, Document N O -6 21, N M T , xiii, 530 -1.

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Schickedanz found disfavour with Berger because the latter wished to place an SS official in the job. Although initially hesitant about having the same person act as both General Commissar and Higher SS and Police Leader, Hitler yielded,1 and SS Brigadeführer von Gottberg became the new boss of Belorussia, combining the two positions ‘ in personal union’. His appointment was a measure of the increased power the SS now wielded. In 1941 Rosenberg had protested the authority of SS and police officers in his realm; now an SS officer was foisted upon him as a leading satrap. Gottberg is reported to have been basically hostile to the Belo­ russians, especially the nationalists. Indeed, some of his aides considered Belorussian nationalism a mere ‘ invention’ and would gladly have forgotten about it.12 Although little more than a ‘ robber chieftain’ ,3 Gottberg, once faced with the realities of 1943 Belo­ russia, was not committed to drawing the ‘ iron conclusions’ which Koch derived from the Untermensch concept. By the time Gottberg took over, the tasks were far more prosaic but at the same time more urgent than the ambitious blueprints and visions with which Ger­ many had entered the East. Minsk was becoming an embattled fortress in partisan land; only the major arteries of communication from and to Germany were being kept open; deliveries of agri­ cultural produce had dwindled; attacks and assassinations multi­ plied. Soon after his appointment, Gottberg went to Berlin for a series of conferences. Exposed to pro-nationalist urgings at the Ostministerium, Gottberg admitted that his first impulse had been to dissolve the advisory Belorussian Council, but he had come to the conclusion that the Belorussian nationalists had to be promoted further, in order to broaden the base of German rule.4 Upon returning to Minsk, he decided to take a ‘ dramatic’ step. On December 21, 1943, addressing an assembly of nationalist activists, he proclaimed the formation of a Belorussian Central Council [Belaruskaia TsentraVnaia Rada, or BTsR]. The Council, which superseded the ‘ Self-H elp’ and the ‘ Council of Men of Trust’, was declared to be ‘ the representation of the Belorussian people within the framework of the existing self-government’ . Its ‘ right and duty’ were to make ‘ necessary and proper suggestions’ to the German authorities and to take the ‘ required measures’ in the fields of educational, social, and cultural activities. Its President was to be appointed by Gottberg and could be dismissed by h im ; all other 1 2 3 4

Berger to Himmler, October 2 1, 1943, Himmler file 2 1 5 * . See Kleist, op. cit. p. 17 5 ; interviews G -6 and G -17 . Interview G -8. Interview G -6. The conference took place in the latter part of November.

G.R.R. — Q

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members were likewise to be named by the Generalkommissar upon the proposal of the President.1 With Ermachenko dismissed and Ivanoüski dead, the new Belorussian ‘ Führer’ groomed to be President was Radaslav Astroüski (Ostrovskii). A former high school teacher who had lived in Poland, Astroüski had returned with the Germans in 1941 and had been instrumental in organizing the local administration. Less ‘ romantic’ than some of his colleagues, he was well aware of the weakness of the nationalist movement and for this reason had come to believe that it could be successful only if it gained the support of a third power. In 1943 he managed to persuade some of the German officials that his movement would find a ‘ swelling tide of support ’ in the country­ side. Though many Germans continued to fear a shift of responsi­ bility to ‘ native’ bodies, and unpopular ones at that, he gained ground by arguing that the ‘ political trick’ of according recognition to him would provide the necessary elan for the anti-partisan struggle to be waged by the population itself. According to some sources, Astroüski raised as ‘conditions’ the calling of a new All-Belorussian Congress and the formation of a Belorussian armed force.12 If indeed these were his terms, there was little reason lor the Germans to reject them. To them, calling the congress was little more than another psychological warfare measure; the formation of additional Belorussian armed units was welcome since the primary purpose of the whole operation, from Gottberg’s point of view, was the mobilization of the Belorussians.3 The day after the official proclamation of the Council, Astroüski decreed the ‘ mobilization’ of fourteen age groups for the prospective Belorussian armed forces. He and his aides travelled extensively searching for recruits and supporters.4 Based largely on the German1 The proclamation was not made into a decree until March i, 1944. See the Statute of the Belorussian Central Council, Generalkommissar für Weissruthenien, Amtsblatt!Uradovy ves’nik, iv (1944), no* 4 > J also von Mende, ‘ Die besetzten Ostgebiete’ , Jahrbuch der Weltpolitik, pp. 198-9 ; ‘ Weissruthenischer Zentralrat gegründet’, Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland (Riga), December 22, 1943. 2 For further references, see Vakar, op. cit. pp. 203, 270 ; Buchardt, pp. 160-3 ; Fritz Arlt, ‘ Die Entwicklung der politischen Vertretungen der Völker des Ostens’ , M S #, pp. 9 -10 ; interview H-800. Astroüski had many enemies, in part because of his consistently pro-German orientation, in part because of his conviction in the 1920’s of connections with the Communist-permeated Hramada in Eastern Poland. 3 In a conversation with a responsible official of the Ostministerium on March 1, 1944, Gottberg summarized the purposes of the B T sR , as he saw th em : help mobilize the Belorussian population, fight the partisans, train and service the draftees, and advise the Germans on ‘ the seizure of men (where voluntary, where compulsory)’ . (Labs, ‘ Vermerk über eine Besprechung mit dem stellvertr. Generalkommissar . . . am 1 .3 .1 9 4 4 ’, March 10, 1944, Document N O -3 7 2 3 *.) 4 For an example of a strongly anti-Western speech by Astroüski, see his address in Baronoviche, ‘ M it Deutschland für ein freies Weissruthenien’ , Minsker Zeitung, February 23, 1944.

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directed uniformed police, the B K A managed to assemble about sixty battalions by compulsory draft. Some of these were sent to fight the partisans; some were later withdrawn to Germany and reorganized into a combat division.1 The Gottberg administration seemed satisfied with the formal progress of the ‘ Belorussian action’. At this late phase, an ad­ ministrative change which had been under discussion for many months intervened. Partly as a ‘ reward’ to both Gottberg and the nationalists, partly as ‘ punishment’ for Lohse’s hostility to Rosen­ berg and the SS, and partly as a means of streamlining German administration, it was decided to separate the General Commis­ sariat of Belorussia from Ostland.12 A decree signed by Hitler on April 1, 1944, detached Belorussia from Riga and established it as a separate entity directly subordinate to Berlin.3 Such moves were of little practical significance. The Red Army was on the offensive. Before its summer drive of 1944, it was poised before Vitebsk and M ogilev; Smolensk and Gomel’ were back in Soviet hands. June-July 1944 saw the end of German control in Belorussia, and on July 2 the B T sR hurriedly fled west­ wards from Minsk. First at Posen, then in Berlin the remnants of the ‘ council’ and ‘ government’ reconvened under the tutelage of the Ostministerium.4 Just before fleeing, however, the council staged the ‘ Belorussian Congress’ which it had been promised six months earlier. In midJune, to the roar of Soviet artillery, Minsk saw over a thousand Belorussian nationalists convene to establish a fictitious bond of ‘ legitimacy’ for the Astroüski ‘ regime’ by linking it with the Belo­ russian Rada of 1918, and to adopt a set of statutes and by-laws. As one analyst observes, one is puzzled at seeing how little the assembly did have to declare. History was reviewed with accusatory fingers pointed at Poland and the Soviet Union, while the present situation was passed over in silence. And so were the burning issues of the future. The omissions proved more 1 For text of draft decree, see Minsker Zeitung, March 10, 1944. The con­ temporary newspapers, Minsker Zeitung, Ranitsa, and Belaruski Rabotnik, contain numerous dispatches and articles on their activities. See also Golubovich, op. cit. pp. 20 -33 ; B. Vazemy, ‘ Belaruski vyzvol’ny rukh’ , Belaruskae slova (Backnang), 1950, no. 2/14, pp. 3 - 1 1 ; Document Occ E 3 3 - 1 5 * , Y IV O . A t the same time, the Belorussian youth movement was further developed. Provided with symbols, flags, and insignia, not unlike the German Hitlerjugend, the S B M undertook a variety of activities ranging from folk-singing to road construction. (Interviews G -6, G -18 , H-800.) 2 Document N O -37 2 3*.

3 Hitler, ‘ Erlass des Führers über die Ausgliederung des Generalbezirks Weissruthenien’, April 1, 1944* ; interviews G-6, G -31. 4 See below, p. 620.

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eloquent than the spoken words. The only new idea with which the assembly wished to enrich the nationalist doctrine was the cursing of the Jews. This unworthy means was the cheapest way of paying off the temporary masters. . . .* To the foes of Belorussian statehood and even to the nationalist opponents of Astroüski, it was a sordid bit of stagecraft, tinted with the brush of Nazism.12 To its advocates, it was the climax of old aspirations which permitted at least a -symbolic manifestation of what they asserted was the ‘ national w ill’, as expressed by some 1150 hand-picked delegates, who dispersed promptly thereafter. Within a week, the leaders were on their way to exile and emigration.3 Thus ended three years of German rule in this ‘ least-known country of Europe’. Kube’s and Gottberg’s policies assuredly differed from Koch’s. While Koch rejected the population in toto as a political factor, under the impact of events Kube and Gottberg shifted towards the concealment of Nazi aims and the promoting of one particular group, the extreme nationalists. However, as one German expert has testified, Kube and Gottberg had little interest in assisting the subject population ; only because of daily necessities did they become convinced of the utility of having the indigenous population participate in the duties of adminis­ tration by progressively granting it greater rights. The main incentive for Gottberg was surely the numerous examples showing that the partisans could be successfully fought only with the assistance of the Belorussians.4 On the other hand, of all groups the nationalists were, paradoxi­ cally, the ones least likely to rally the people to the German cause. Nationalists of an earlier generation had largely been exterminated by the Soviets ; the rank-and-file Belorussians and the sizeable nonBelorussian minorities on its territory were merely antagonized by Astroüski’s activities. The ‘ broad masses’ seem to have cared little for any distinctly ‘ political’ problems. For them, the material and moral aspects — German requisitions, partisan raids, flogging and humiliation, forced labour, collective farms — were more vital issues. 1 Vakar, op. cit. p. 206. 2 A few weeks earlier, a German survey of Belorussia showed that the popula­ tion overwhelmingly looked upon the B T sR as a group of unknown and undesirable emigres. (G K Minsk, report, April 18, 1944, E A P 99/68*, C R S.) 3 On the Second All-Belorussian Congress, see the minutes, for whose use I am grateful to Dr. Nicholas Vakar, Pratakol pasedzhati nia Druhoha Usebelaruskaha Kanhresu 27 chervnia 19 4 4 g. (Minsk, 1944) ’> and Iaukhim Kipel’, ‘ Druhi Usebelaruski kanhres* (Backnang, 1949). See also K. Ezavitoü, ‘ 2-hi Usebelaruski Kanhres ü M ensku\ Ranitsa (Berlin), 1944, no. 29/191, pp. 2-4. 4 Gerhard von Mende, letter to author, November 19, 1953.

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While in the Ukraine all expressions of ‘ native’ movements were being suppressed, in Belorussia precisely those groups were being tolerated — in small doses — which were least able to rally the people to their cause. Rosenberg’s anti-Muscovite hopes, frustrated by his subordinates in the Ukraine, in Belorussia fell on barren soil. The main German trump was dealt in the wrong deck: separatism proved weaker here than in almost any other Soviet republic. The efforts to encourage the nationalists won few to the German cause and antagonized many. While Koch never pretended to be something he was not, the leadership in Minsk tried to sugar-coat the brutalities and abuses with a veneer of concessions and verbiage. The discrepancies between German words and actions were too gaping and too acutely felt to halt popular alienation — a process furthered by the partisan movement to a greater degree than in the Ukraine, largely because of the more auspicious terrain. A comparison of the policies applied in Ostland and the Ukraine shows both Koch’s doctrinaire and in­ discriminate extremism as well as Kube’s and Gottberg’s belated tactics of pretended ‘ friendship’ and pro-separatism to have been utter failures. The difference in policy, important as it was in the German approach, was not great enough to alter popular response. To the average inhabitant, both belonged to the same despised species of foreign oppression.

CHAPTER XII

T H E C R E S C E N T AND TH E S W A S T I K A : (i) T U R K E Y AND T H E C A U C A SU S I consider only the Moslems to be reliable.— A dolf H itler T h e Georgians must be, so to speak, the landlords of . . . the Caucasian federation [which will] beg Germany to assure their cultural and national existence.— A lfred Rosenberg

The Berlin-Tiflis Axis T he Caucasus, with its complex demography, its valuable resources, and its mysterious legends and customs, came under Russian rule after a protracted struggle marked by bloody conquests and ‘ volun­ tary ’ annexations, lasting well into the nineteenth century. A hotbed of revolutionary fever until the overthrow of tsarism in Russia, it witnessed a brief spell of independence as a result of the centrifugal process unleashed by the Bolshevik seizure of power. At that time, the three Transcaucasian areas — Georgia, Armenia, and Azer­ baijan — each with its distinct historical traditions, even gained some international recognition. The fourth area, the North Caucasus by contrast highly heterogeneous in national, cultural, and social composition, was beset with a variety of internal conflicts. In 1 920-1, hostile Western opinion notwithstanding, the young Soviet state completed the recapture of the entire Caucasus, which later became an integral part of the U .S .S .R .; by 1941, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan were Union Republics, while the North Caucasus was a part of the Russian S F S R , with a number of so-called autonomous republics and provinces. As elsewhere, Soviet policy in the Caucasus fostered local cultures and indigenous participation in political affairs, while meting out severe retribution for all political and doctrinal heterodoxy.1 In the Nazi mind the conceptual image of the future Caucasus remained more fuzzy than that of the Ukraine or Great Russia. Only three things were spelled out in advance: German need for Caucasian o il; Nazi ‘ knowledge’ that the population of the Caucasus 1 A comprehensive history of the Caucasus remains to be written. For back­ ground see Firuz Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia (New York : Philosophical Library, 19 5 1) ; Walter Kolarz, Russia and Her Colonies (New York : Praeger, 1953), ch. vii, viii ; Richard E. Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1954). 226

oh.

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was largely non-Slavic and ‘ Aryan’ ; and the absence of German designs for resettlement in the Caucasus. For Hitler and the military.high command, the importance of the Caucasus lay primarily in the oil of Baku and Groznyi. In his pre-invasion plans Rosenberg indicated that the ‘ foremost, decisive task’ of the German occupation authorities in the Caucasus would be to assure the Reich of adequate oil and fuel supplies.1 As Hitler remarked, the Caucasus plays a particularly important role in our considerations because it is the greatest source of oil. . . . If we wish to obtain its oil, we must keep the Caucasus under strictest supervision. Otherwise, the hostility among the tribes living there, fraught with blood feuds, would make any worthwhile exploitation impossible.2 Hitler approached the Caucasus with practical rather than ideological considerations uppermost in his mind. Probably at the Army’s suggestion, Rosenberg’s memoranda included the prospect of a 99-year ‘ concession’, on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, for a German naval and air base. ‘ The concession would in substance have the earmarks of an autarchic military colony.’ 3 With this single exception, however, Rosenberg’s plans for the Caucasus envisaged a substantially different policy from that to be pursued in the Slavic areas. Always politically minded, he rapidly forgot that economic considerations were to be uppermost here, and lapsed into his favourite pastime of reshaping the map of the East in accordance with his own preconceptions. He was able to do this all the more easily because Hitler’s views implied that the future of the Caucasus had not been predetermined and because, in the absence of a clear political programme, emigres were able to affect German policy here far more than in other parts of the Soviet Union. Of the manifold strains among the refugees who continued their activity in Western Europe and the Near East, two came to play a particularly important role : the Turkic-Moslem groups and the advocates of a Greater Georgia.4 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar in Kaukasien*, M ay 7, 1941, Document io 2 7 -P S #. 2 Harry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn: Athenäum-Verlag, 1951), pp. 80-1. Military plans were geared to a concentrated attack against the oil fields rather than against other targets in the Caucasus. See ‘ Auszüge aus den Aufzeich­ nungen zum Kriegstagebuch des Wehrmach tführungsstabes’ , Helmuth Greiner, Die oberste Wehrmachtführung 19 3 9 -1 9 4 3 (Wiesbaden: Limes Verlag, 19 51), pp. 408-9. 3 Document io27-PS#. A few months later the project reappeared with specific reference to the area west of Maikop, i.e. between Novorossiisk and Tuapse. See Rosenberg to Meyer, October 20, 19 41, Document 10 57 -P S *.

,

4 Political and national divisions were manifold and deep among the £migr£s. Some favoured a Caucasus federated with Russia ; others advocated independence

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The Turkic and Moslem elements, which proved important during the war, gained no hearing in the spring of 1941 when Rosen­ berg and his staff were formulating policy. Their pressure was brought to bear only after the initial blueprints had been adopted. On the other hand, Georgian emigres early exerted a substantial influence on Nazi thinking. Among them, Alexander Nikuradze, a physicist and geopolitician, occupied first place as adviser to Rosen­ berg. Relegating his ‘ narrow* Georgian nationalism to the back­ ground, he became a faithful interpreter of Haushofer’s theories of ‘ large spaces’ and was thus able to mastermind an ambitious scheme providing for German overlordship in a projected Caucasian con­ federation in which the Georgians were to play the leading role. In his view, Georgia was to the Caucasus what Germany was to Europe : racially, the purest and most valuable element; geographically, centrally located; politically, the most capable and endowed with a mission of leadership.1 Rosenberg accepted this concept of a ‘ Berlin-Tiflis A xis’. As early as 1927, he had argued that, just as an alliance between Berlin and Kiev was needed, so the separation of the Caucasus from Russia would usher in a new era in German-Caucasian relations.2 In 1941 Rosenberg’s blueprint required that the Caucasus become a part of the anti-Russian cordon sanitaire. When drafting his programme for the future Caucasus, Rosenberg echoed Nikuradze’s viewpoint in assigning the predominant role to the Georgians. ‘ Culturally the most advanced’, boasting a thousand years’ culture, ‘ undoubtedly those who produced the greatest energy’ , they were to become the object of special care and nurturing [Pflege]. With Tiflis as its capital, the future Caucasus was to accord the Georgians the status, ‘ so to speak, of landlords of the federal government’, of which a Georgian, moreover, was to be permanent chairman.3 for their homeland ; a third wanted a Caucasian federation ; various factions propounded closer ties with the Turkish and Moslem world. Some of the antago­ nisms are relevant to the present study. Georgians and Armenians had been traditional enemies ; the Armenians, in particular, feared that a Georgiandominated Caucasus would lead to discrimination against them. On the other hand, both Georgia and Armenia, as Christian Orthodox areas, at times clashed with their Moslem neighbours and looked to third powers (Russia, Germany, the United States) for props against the ‘ threat of encirclement’ by the predominantly Moslem North Caucasians and the Turks and Azerbaijanis to the south. 1 On Nikuradze, see also above, p. 89. 2 Rosenberg, Der Zukunftsweg einer deutschen Aussenpolitik (Munich : F. Eher, 1927), p. 973 Document io 2 7 -P S # ; Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’ [April 7, 1941], Document 10 18 -P S * ; interview G -6. Rosenberg reiterated the entire programme in considerable detail in a memorandum to Hitler when the attack on the Caucasus began in the summer of 1942, again stressing the necessity of German political and military control (easy to achieve because of the ethnic diversity of the population),

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Such a plan for a large Georgian-led Caucasian bloc inevitably aroused opposition. In particular, the fate of Armenia repeatedly evoked conflicts. Rosenberg himself warned that the Armenians had ‘ few good qualities’ by comparison with their neighbours. In terms of popular prejudice, the notion that they were ‘ levantine traders’ not unlike the Jews was deep-seated in Nazi circles, and racial ‘ purists’ along with Hitler himself were prone to look upon the Armenians as ‘ non-Aryans’, a view fanned by Georgian chauvinists. Though the Armenian prisoners of war and refugees were somewhat discriminated against, the ultimate status of Armenia remained an academic problem because the Germans never reached it.1 In addition, the Georgian project alienated those circles of emigres — and later, prisoners — who had pro-Turkish, pro-Russian, and pro-Western sympathies. By implication, the whole scheme was based on the supercilious Aryan attitude towards ‘ Turks and Tatars’ , in comparison with whom (according to both Rosenberg and Nikuradze) the Georgians were a ‘ superior’ people.2 Were one to leave the Caucasian nationality mixture to its own devices [Rosenberg declared with a touch of disdain], they would mutually cut their throats. . . . [Hence] the goal will not be the creation of Caucasian national states. Instead we shall seek a federal solution which, with German help, will reach the point where these peoples will perhaps beg Germany to assure their cultural and national existence. As none of the peoples of the Caucasus was strong enough to compel all others to accept its rule, the ‘ protection of a third power’ — Germany — was essential for them, and ‘ the leading personalities of these nationalities must, as a group, approach the German Reich on their own with the request to become . . . the necessary protecting power’ . Rosenberg’s recipe paralleled that for the Ukraine : rather than permit splinter sovereignties, rear a united Caucasian State ; suspend it, as it were, and expose it to the threats of its neighbours and internal dissension ; and thus oblige it to look the demand for cultural autonomy and religious tolerance, and reliance upon Georgia as the strongest German point of support. (Rosenberg, ‘ Über die Gestaltung Kaukasiens’, July 27, 1942, Document U S S R -5 8 *.) 1 Document 10 2 7 -P S * ; interviews G -6, H -375, H-500 ; Picker, op. cit. p. 3 15 . The major Nazi foes of the Armenians were the S S and the Party’s Office of Race Politics ; their defenders included Paul Rohrbach, the veteran Ostkenner. (See his editorial, Armenien [Berlin], no. 15 -16 [December 1943].) Rosenberg’s argument in favour of equal status was the view that ‘ Armenia was the best belt between Turkey and Azerbaijan and thereby prevents the eastward spread of a panTuranic movement’ . (Document 1520 -P S, T M W C , xxvii, 289.) 2 Interviews G -6, H -545, H-546.

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to Berlin for an ‘ ordering’ hand. The actual aspirations of the population did not matter.1 And yet, in the absence of other overriding considerations, the farther the lands from the Reich’s borders, the more generous and ‘ statesmanlike’ Rosenberg could afford to be. Here, among nonSlavs, Rosenberg advised his aides, the solution requires great circumspection in the treatment of the various nationalities. One must also take into account their habits which might seem strange to us. There [in the Caucasus] an eminently psychologicalpolitical task faces us, and I ask you to implore all officials assigned there to act accordingly, to avert possible harm which might be done if a certain provincial, busy-body pettiness prevails.2 At the earliest opportunity, he insisted, long-range political plans must take preponderance over military-economic demands. For this relatively favoured area he ordered what he refused to allow with regard to Great Russia : The important task in the Caucasus must, in the future, be largely realized not by direct military and police methods but by political means. He looked forward to the time when the Caucasian Confederation, under German guidance, would become a full-fledged partner in a ‘ wreath of Black Sea states’. The Caucasus, with the Ukraine, Rumania, and the Cossack areas, would then fulfil his goal of an ‘ expanded’ Europe in the south-east, for which there was only one precedent, the ancient empire of the Goths.3 As plans matured, however, the Caucasus was reduced to the status of a Reich Commissariat, like Muscovy, Ostland, and the Ukraine. Whatever its eventual form of government, the im­ mediate future held for it only stringent German control. At an early date, Rosenberg submitted the name of a mutual friend of his and Nikuradze, Arno Schickedanz, as German ‘ resident-general’ of the Caucasus. A mediocre journalist, who by the grace of Rosen­ berg had become an editor of the Völkischer Beobachter, a fanatical Nazi, vain and blindly loyal, this petty man spent his days examining sketches of his future palace in Tiflis and discussing the number of gates it would need.4 Though Goring doubted the man’s ability to cope with the complex problems of the Caucasus, Hitler approved 1 Document 10 2 7 -P S * ; Rosenberg, speech, June 20, 1941, Document 1058PS, T M W C , xxvi, 620. 2 Document 10 58-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 620-1. 3 Document 10 27-P S 4 On Schickedanz, see also above, p. 88 ; and interviews G -5, G -6, G -10 . Rosenberg suggested his name as early as April 7, 19 4 1. (Document 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 556.)

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his nomination at the conference of July 16, 1941.1 In practice, Schickedanz never took command. Like the Ukraine and Ostland, the Reichskommissariat Kaukasien (R K K ), as contemplated by the Rosenberg office, was to extend beyond the area settled by its peoples. Since the southern bounds of the Caucasus were determined by the borders of Turkey and Iran, and on the west and east by the Black and Caspian Seas, any ex­ pansion had to be northwards. Hence, to augment the R K K ’s importance, to distribute the remaining unassigned areas, to weaken Rump Russia, and to inject another heterogeneous element which would increase Caucasian reliance on Germany, the R K K was to extend to the vicinity of Rostov and beyond the Volga delta.2 It was to consist of seven commissariats: Georgia, Azerbaijan, the ‘ Mountaineer’ area of the North Caucasus (including Daghestan, North Osetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, the Chechen-Ingush region, and Circassia), as well as the largely Slavic administrative units of Krasnodar and Stavropol’ (Voroshilovsk) as General Commissariats ; the sparsely inhabited Kalmyk area (enlarged to include Astrakhan and a part of Rostov province) and Armenia, because of their ‘ inferior’ status, were to become Main Commissariats [Hauptbe­ zirke], units of somewhat subordinate importance.3 In the early phases of the campaign, Rosenberg’s plans for the Caucasus received relatively little attention. To the extent that an exchange of views took place, the Army did not overtly object to them. Strategy for 1942 called for a push into Iran and Iraq, for which the Caucasus (along with North Africa) was a vital spring­ board, which the Army hoped to control. For the moment, it could ignore the drastic landscaping projects of the amateur gardeners in the Ostministerium. From Ankara to the Adlon In the Caucasus, unlike other parts of the Soviet Union, Germany was compelled to reckon with interested third powers, of which the most important was Turkey. The Ankara government occupied an 1 [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk’, July i6, 19 41, Document 2 2 1 -L , T M W C , xxxviii, 9 1-2. 2 See Documents 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 5 5 1 ; 10 58-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 624 ; interviews G -6, G -1 2 , H -8 1. On the Cossack region, see below, pp. 299-301. 3 See Dienststelle Rosenberg, ‘ Die neuen Ostgebiete’, June 18, 19 41, and ‘ Besetzte Ostgebiete’, June 25, 19 4 1, Documents 10 3 5 -P S * and I0 36 -P S * ; and RM fdbO ., Der Generalbezirk Georgien : Entwurf (Berlin, 1942). See also map, p. 245. In line with the verbal camouflage contemplated for the Caucasus, Rosen­ berg urged that the Reich Commissar be called Reich Resident, the former name being ‘ too drastic ’ and unnecessary ; and that each component commissariat such as Georgia and Armenia be known as a Land. (Document U .S .S .R .-58 *.)

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ambiguous position. Fearful of the Reich, it was also afraid of the Soviet Union. Though anxious to improve its own position if Hitler should win, Turkey also courted the friendship of Britain and America, which held the lifelines to Egypt and Iran. To Hitler the eventual conquest or neutralization of Turkey was a foregone conclusion; elementary prudence, however, commanded Berlin to manage relations with Ankara so as not to antagonize the Turks ‘ prematurely ’ or, better yet, to win them over to the Axis side. Hitler’s very earliest war plans called for a swift drive to Baku. Only later, he believed, would he decide ‘ to what extent . . . Turkey should be brought’ into the picture. After the collapse of negotiations with Molotov in November 1940, Hitler ordered the Foreign Office to avoid friction with Turkey, for ‘ we can do the Straits only after Russia has been beaten’ . Indeed, three days before the German attack, Berlin signed a treaty of friendship with Ankara.1 The German invasion of the Soviet Union heightened Turkish interest in the fate of the Caucasus and the Turkic areas of the Soviet Union. Most statesmen in Ankara followed the ‘ LittleTurkish’ formula of renouncing all ambitions of expansion, an out­ look which Kemal Atatürk had left to his successors as an axiom of political wisdom. At the same time, other politicians — and especi­ ally the numerous emigres from the U .S.S.R ., a number of whom had risen to prominence in Turkey — took a special interest, first, in the near-by Turkic-Moslem areas, i.e. the Crimea and Azerbaijan ; second, in the Caucasus as a w hole; and third, in the fate of the Soviet Turks and Tatars.12 Franz von Papen, the German ambassador to Turkey and former nationalist chancellor of Germany, kept Berlin informed of panTurkic activities. In August 1941 he reported from Ankara that . . . in view of the successes of the Germans in Russia, Turkish govern­ ment circles are increasingly concerned with the fate of their fellow1 Haider, Diary (Nuremberg : Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, 1946), iv, 144 ; v, 34 ; vi, 29 (entries for July 31, 1940, November 24, 1940, and March 17, 1941). On Turkish policy, see also Edward Vere-Hodge, Turkish Foreign Policy (Ambilly : University of Geneva, 1950), pp. 148-54. 2 The history of pan-Turkism remains to be written. One may distinguish between pan-Turanists, who sought to unite the Turkic and Tatar worlds into one bloc, and pan-Turkists, whose programme called for unity of the Turkic peoples alone. For the background, see Zarevand, Turtsiia i panturanizm (Paris : n.p., 1930) ; Gerhard von Mende, Der nationale Kampf der Russlandtürken (Berlin : Weidmann, 1936) ; the valuable, though German oriented, survey of ‘ liberationist ’ efforts by Soviet Turcs in Turkey, Gotthard Jäschke, ‘ Der Turanismus und die kemalistische Türkei \ Der Orient in deutscher Forschung, ed. by H. H. Schaeder (Leipzig : Harrassowitz, 1944), PP- 248-54 i and Johannes Benzing, ‘ Berliner politische Veröffentlichungen der Türken aus der Sowjetunion’, Welt des Islams (Berlin), xviii (1936), 12 2 -3 1.

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nationals beyond the Turkish-Russian border, and especially with the fate of the Azerbaijani Turks. These circles . . . evidently wish to annex this region, especially the valuable Baku oil fields.1 Actually, opinion in Turkey was sharply divided. Among the Turkic emigres the group that had easiest access to Papen was the Musawat, which under the leadership of Emin Resulzade strove for an independent Azerbaijan. By contrast with advocates of more extensive pan-Turkic states and federations, its spokesmen ad­ vanced a narrower formulation by which the Azerbaijani nationalists sought to ‘ steal’ the place of the Ukraine in the Rosenberg scheme as the privileged primus among the Eastern nationalities : Germany must pay particular attention to the formation of as strong a state as possible in the south-east, so as to keep Russia under threat in this round-about way. The Ukraine does not fulfil this function to a sufficient degree. The Ukrainians are Slavs and therefore, like the Bulgarians and Serbs, may at any time become conscious of their common past with Russia. For the Turks such a possibility is utterly excluded ! 12 This was scarcely the official conception of the Turkish govern­ ment. All Ankara dared do was to intimate privately that it was much interested in the ‘just aspirations’ of the Soviet Turcs and to suggest that in the future ‘ one might unite the peoples of the Caucasus into one buffer state’ .3 It decidedly did not wish to court trouble by asking for a slice of Soviet soil. Indeed, Germany’s own plans were still in the making. Flushed with victory, Berlin mapped its drive into the Near East, allowing for either contingency: ‘ If after the victorious conclusion of the Eastern campaign, Turkey could be won’, it was decided, ‘ . . . an attack on Syria [and] Palestine in the direction of Egypt is planned’ . If, on the other hand, ‘ Turkey’s co-operation cannot be secured even after the collapse of Soviet Russia, the southward push through Anatolia shall be carried out against the will of the Turks’ .4 1 Papen to German Foreign Office, August 5, 1941, trans. in U .S .S .R ., M ID , Arkhivnoe Upravlenie, Dokumenty ministerstva inostrannykh del Germanii, vol. ii : Germanskaia politika v Turtsii ( 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 3 gg.) (Moscow : O G IZ , 1946), pp. 34-6. While highly selective, this series of documents (hereafter cited as G P T ) appears to be authentic. In his own memoirs, Papen is strikingly silent on the problem of Turkish plans towards the U .S .S .R . but reports, without confirmation, that Turkish Foreign Minister Sükrü Saracoglu acclaimed the German attack on Russia — ‘ an understandable state, in view of his constant concern over . . . the possibility of a joint Russo-German operation against the Dardanelles’ . (Franz von Papen, Memoirs [London : Andr£ Deutsch, 1952], p. 479-) 2 G P T , pp. 38-9. 3 Weizsäcker to Ribbentrop, August 5, 19 41, G P T , pp. 40-1. 4 Ski la, letter, August 8, 1941, Document 0 57-C , T M W C , xxxiv, 260-2.

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German duplicity was hardly mitigated by the fact that the prolongation of the campaign in Russia required a postponement of these plans. Since the defeat of the Soviet regime remained the paramount objective, ‘ operations in the Eastern Mediterranean will be impracticable before Transcaucasia is reached’. On the other hand, since military action against Turkey was most undesirable, ‘ we must try to win her over by political means’.1 These ‘ political means’ included a subordination of doctrine to foreign policy tactics. At the end of October, General Ali Fuad Erden, former com­ mandant of the Turkish General Staff Academy and a member of parliament, and Hussein Erkilet, a prominent pan-Turkist and proGerman general of Tatar origin, arrived for an official visit in the Reich, which included a reception by the Führer. The Germans sought to revive memories of German-Turkish ‘ brotherhood in arms’ during the first World War and to impress their guests by a tour of the Eastern front. Upon their return, the generals reported at length to the Turkish president, foreign minister, and chief of the General Staff.12 Impressed by the fact that the Ankara government condoned Erkilet’s pan-Turkist propaganda activities, the Foreign Office in Berlin urged continued efforts to assure Turkey’s ‘ benevolent neutrality’. Under-Secretary Ernst Woermann argued that the Western Allies had nothing to offer the Turks ; hence, if Ankara was interested in strengthening its position (and the Foreign Office seemed to consider ‘ strengthening’ synonymous with territorial expansion), Germany was Turkey’s logical ally. Woermann believed that, while they had not yet expressed any such demand, the Turks in general advocate the establishment of (at least outwardly) independent Turkic states in the Crimea, the North Caucasus, Russian Azerbaijan — the latter two as parts of a Caucasus state — and analogous states to the east of the Caspian Sea.3 Papen, more realistically, admitted that Turkey might try to remain neutral since ‘ a complete collapse . . . of the British Empire . . . -is not in Turkey’s interest [which demands] the maintenance of a balance of power in the Mediterranean, and not such unlimited 1 Haider, D iary, vii, 94-9, citing O K W memorandum, presumably midSeptember 1941. 2 Papen to Weizsäcker, November 10, 1941, G P T , pp. 42-5 ; interview G -6. The guests also urged upon the Germans better treatment of Turkic prisoners of war and suggested the formation of ‘ volunteer* legions from among them. On the Crimea, see Chapter X I I I ; on the legions, see below, pp. 540-2. 3 Woermann to Warlimont, December 2, 19 41, G P T , pp. 63-8.

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hegemony of Italy as might possibly ensue from a complete victory of the A xis’. Papen therefore urged continued German ‘ softness’ towards T u r k e y : Any attempt to provoke Turkey prematurely to an active demonstra­ tion of its position — by demanding that it participate in the war or grant us permission to move our troops through its territory — would unfailingly lead to Turkey’s shifting to the enemy side.1 Recognition of this precarious situation led German diplomats and some of their military associates to advocate concessions to the Turkish point of view : in the treatment of Turkic prisoners of war, the matter of local self-government and the pursuit of a more ‘ enlightened’ policy in the Crimea. One more step remained to be taken: German co-operation with the pro-Turkish Caucasian emigres, who had stepped up their activities since the German invasion.12 While the Foreign Office hoped in this manner to gain a policy­ making role in Soviet affairs by the back door, the Rosenberg Ministry solidly opposed its endeavours. Thus there arose the conflict over the Adlon conference which Ambassador von der Schulenburg sponsored in April-May 1942.3 Against his efforts there came about the rare coalition of the Bormann wing, hostile to all refugee representatives and diplomatic amenities, with the Rosenberg school, which opposed this venture of the Foreign Office. The seemingly untoward reversal of the Ostministerium can be traced to several factors, not the least of which was jealous fear of competition from Ribbentrop’s offices ; if at last refugees were to be enlisted, Rosenberg had his own rosters ready. Yet there was also a kernel of principle in his position. Unlike some of the diplomats, the top officials of the OMi were decidedly hostile to the proTurkish orientation. The evil genius once again appears to have been Nikuradze. The two imperialist conceptions — of a Turkish-led 1 Papen to Weizsäcker, January 5, 19 4 1, G P T , pp. 52-6 1. 2 Both the semi-fascist Bozkurt [‘ Grey Wolf*] and the imperialist Qiniraltl published ardent appeals ; and a public rally in March 1942 sang an anthem that \ . . we shall plant the glorious Turkish flag beyond the Caucasus1 (Jäschke, op. cit. p. 253). For a tendentious but documented Soviet account, see I. Vasil’ev, O turetskom ‘ ntitralitete9 vo vtoroi mirovoi voine (Moscow : Gosizdat, 19 51), pp. 58 ff. See also Papen to Ribbentrop, M ay 13, 1942, and Hentig, memorandum, June 1, 1942, G P T , pp. 80-4. A pamphlet published in Istanbul in 1943 attacked the pan-Turkist leaders as ‘ the greatest threat’ confronting Turkey, citing from their writings and speeches. Moscow approvingly reported its contents. (Faris Erkman, En Biiyok Tehlike [Istanbul, 1943] ; ‘ Otpoved’ turetskim pantiurkistam*, Izvestiia [Moscow], June 15 19 4 3 ) 3 See above, pp. 13 3 -7 .

,

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Caucasian Grossraum, and of a Georgian-led Caucasus — were bound to clash fiercely. Schickedanz was easily converted to the anti-Turkish outlook, for any Turkish ‘ encroachment’ on German ‘ rights’ in the Caucasus ipso facto restricted Schickedanz’s future role as Reich Commissar. Rosenberg followed in step, interjecting another argument: the Turkish-oriented refugees were suspected of ‘ democratic’ opinions and therefore constituted a danger to the Nazi cause.1 Thus when Schulenburg had assembled his emigre guests at the Adlon Hotel, Rosenberg got Hitler to stop the comedy promptly. This episode, as has been shown, produced the directive barring the Foreign Office from a voice in matters affecting the Soviet Union. Rosenberg triumphed momentarily as hegemon in Ost affairs, while Hitler turned even more vehemently against the Auswärtiges Amt. So far as Turkey and the Caucasus were concerned, the Adlon conference marked, none the less, an important step. Though Hitler and his immediate associates ignored Schulenburg’s advice, it was henceforth impossible for Berlin to feign ignorance of the emigres’ existence. If only as a face-saving device, some arrangement with the refugees was to be attempted — but under the aegis of the Ostministerium. In practice, the shift of jurisdiction proved less fatal to the Caucasian nationalists’ cause than they might have anticipated, because it was not Schickedanz who dealt with them but primarily two men, Bräutigam and Mende, both of whom were at odds with the Nikuradze outlook. Bräutigam was in close contact with Schulenburg’s group ; Mende was emerging as ‘ chief protector’ of the non-Russian emigres in the Reich. Thus three elements in Berlin joined hands to promote a more considerate attitude towards the Caucasus and its nationalist spokesmen abroad: experts on the Soviet Union at the lower policy-making levels of the Ostministerium, their opposite numbers in the Foreign Office, and cognate elements in the Army — both at the OKH and in the Army Group poised to invade the Caucasus under the command of Field-Marshal List. This unlikely combination prevailed because its components were 1 Interviews G -5, G -6, G -10 , G -14 , H -8 1, H -545, H -546. The picture was further complicated by the fact that (unlike«. Woermann, Hentig, and Papen) Schulenburg was not wedded to a pro-Turkish policy ; on the contrary, he planned to rely on Georgian refugees from Paris who, along with pro-Nazis, included a group who in 1940 had espoused a pro-French position in the war. Schulenburg’s advocacy of Count Heracles Bagration, the ‘ pretender’ to the non-existing throne of Georgia, for the chairmanship of a Georgian National Committee aroused particular hostility in Rosenberg, who wanted malleable tools rather than ‘ de­ generate aristocrats’ . (Rosenberg, interrogation, November 5, 19 4 5*, N A ; Rosenberg, testimony, T M W C , xi, 576 ; Courtier georgien [Paris], no. 1 [April,

1940].)

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united in purpose, though for substantially different reasons: the M ende-Bräutigam faction advocated the ‘ pro-nationality’ stand in opposition to Schickedanz ; the Foreign Office representatives were willing to back the emigres either as a pro-Turkish move or else out of a generally more enlightened approach towards occupation policy; the Army elements siding with them were in part themselves ‘ old Moscow hands’ and in part convinced pragmatists who realized the necessity of a new course. All three groups promoted their policies in spite of contrary views held by their respective superiors, Rosen­ berg, Ribbentrop, and Keitel. Despite the setbacks he had suffered as a result of Hitler’s ruling, Schulenburg had continued to propound his views. Neither the emigres today, nor the population of the Caucasus tomorrow (he insisted in attacking Schickedanz) would co-operate with the Reich unless they were promised some form of statehood, perhaps under German protection, but with its own regime.1 German supervision would be vouchsafed and the aspirations of both Turkey and the nationalist Caucasians would be satisfied only by the ‘ establishment of separate Caucasian states under German protectorate’. The Foreign Office was prepared to recognize that the situation in the Caucasus is significantly different from that in other areas of the Soviet Union and that, at least from the point of view of appearances, a form of administration is required that differs, for instance, from that in the Ukraine.12 Such a formula was the least common denominator of the ‘ triple alliance’ . Rosenberg, still intent on installing friend Schickedanz in Tiflis, did not delay sending Lammers a report complaining about the performance of an inspecting commission which toured camps housing prisoners destined for military service for the Reich. The Nazi officer who sent the report was incensed by the ‘ liberalism’ of the commission, which included Count von der Schulenburg, Counsellors Pfleiderer and Herwarth, and General Köstring — all former German diplomats or attaches in Russia. According to them, . . . independent states must be set up in the Caucasus [the officer complained]. . . . German leadership, exercised through legations or embassies, must be refined and light so that the states would not notice any German influence. At least during the first period, certain branches 1 Schulenburg, memorandum, M ay 15, 1942, and Schulenburg to Ribbentrop, June 26, 1942, E A P 3 a - n / i * , C R S . 2 Dittmann to Tippelskirch, August 5, 1942, G P T , pp. 86-9. G.R.R.— R

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of administration in these states (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, etc.) would have German advisers assigned to them. . . . The several states would be grouped together in a Caucasian Federation, whose executive organ would be a Federal Council, in which a German representative would have the veto power. This plan, though assuring Germany extensive political and economic control, was too liberal for the little Nazi. He was further startled to discover that ‘ the Foreign Office is cleverly winning the support of the Wehrmacht . . . because the military are aghast over the errors of administration in the realm of the Ostministerium (Ukraine and Ostland) as well as in the Government-General, the Netherlands, and Norway’. He suspected that the military, like Köstring, understood ‘ freedom’ for the Soviet nationalities ‘ very broadly, namely to mean sovereignty’. The worst, however, of what I experienced [he added] was a statement by Herr [Herwarth] von Bittenfeld that some of the gentlemen in the Ostministerium, notably Bräutigam and Mende, have the same point of view as the Foreign Office.1 The views of these men prevailed, in part because of the key positions which their domestic allies occupied. Though Rosenberg had formally been victorious over Ribbentrop, in practice his own views were never implemented. The clue to actual policy remained with the Army. Repeatedly postponed because of setbacks at the front, the great push into the Caucasus was at last ready to begin. Late in June 1942, the troops of Army Group ‘ A ’, spearheaded by fast-moving columns, slashed past Rostov into the Kuban’ area and beyond into the North Caucasus. In less than two months they had established themselves in the valleys of Karachai and Circassia and had advanced past the Kalmyk capital of Elista and south of the sea­ port of Novorossiisk. The Army and the North Caucasus Of all the areas of the U .S.S.R . under German rule, the North Caucasus fared best. This was due in part to the non-Slavic back­ ground of its population and to the absence of German plans to settle there — factors which facilitated the application of a more ‘ enlightened’ policy — and to the consideration paid to Turkish reactions. Equally important was the fact that the North Caucasus was occupied for but a short period of time and remained under direct military control, with the sub rosa participation of diplomats, officers, and some of the more realistic elements in the Ostministerium. 1

Gloger to Zimmermann, July 13, 1942, Document NG- 1 65 7*.

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Not only were the responsible agencies generally more moderate than the Party and S S stalwarts, but the individuals assigned to the Caucasus — partly by intent, partly by a fortuitous combination of circumstances — were among the politically most astute in Nazi Ostpolitik. The backbone of the Army wing which advocated a policy of ‘ friendship’ for the conquered peoples was the brilliant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who headed the Organization Section of the O KH and in 1944 carried out the attempt on Hitler’s life. A friend of the Schulenburg group, he managed to get the latter’s ex-attache in Moscow, Russian-born General Köstring, assigned to the Caucasus as inspector of Caucasian collaborator troops, with von Herwarth as his adjutant. The idea was to make Köstring Governor-General of the Caucasus under military occupation, thus confronting Rosenberg and Schickedanz with a fa it accompli. So long as operations con­ tinued in the Near East, the OKH felt sure that it could ward off any Ostministerium attempt to get control of the region. In ad­ dition, Dr. Otto Schiller, a specialist in Soviet agriculture who had also served with the embassy in Russia, was appointed to reform agriculture in the Caucasus; Dr. Otto Bräutigam, former ConsulGeneral at Batum, was made plenipotentiary of the Rosenberg Ministry with Army Group ‘ A ’.1 It was a group far different from the Koch’s, Lohse’s, and Gottberg’s who held sway elsewhere in the East. Hitler remained somewhat undecided on policy for the Caucasus. In his opposition to the Ribbentrop endeavours, he branded as false and dangerous any promises or concessions to the Eastern peoples or to Turkey, ‘ which later cannot be carried out’ . The Foreign Office, he insisted, would be well advised to ‘ refrain from all talk about collaboration’ with the subject peoples.2 At the same time, he recognized that the Caucasus was outside the range of German settlement plans.1 Irritated by the civilians, especially by the diplomats and ‘ Russia experts’, and looking ahead to further conquests in the Near East, he was momentarily prone to concede that the Army should take charge of the Caucasus.4 In a letter to 1 Interviews G - i , G -2, G -5 , G -1 9 ; Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), p. 176 ; Wallace Carroll, ‘ It Takes a Russian to Beat a Russian*, Life (Chicago), December 19, 1949, p. 85 ; Jürgen Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen (Stuttgart : Steingrüben-Verlag, 1953), p. 106 ff. On Stauffenberg, see also below, pp. 543-7. 2 Picker, op. cit. pp. 80-1 (entry for M ay 9, 1942). 3 ‘ T he South, for us, is the Crimea. T o go beyond would be nonsense.* (H T T , p. 70.) 4 Hitler discussed the ‘ necessity for an offensive by Germany and Italy against the Caucasus-Suez area simultaneous with Japanese operations in the western

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Ribbentrop, Lammers reproduced Hitler’s view s: if later the Caucasus was to constitute puppet states under German tutelage, Hitler directed, the Ostministerium would become responsible for its administration; if, on the other hand, Caucasian states, inde­ pendent in name at least, were to be tolerated, the Foreign Office would then be empowered to deal with them. Only one thing was certain: for military, economic, and political reasons, the Caucasus must not remain part of Russia.1 General Wagner, the Quartermaster-General, nominally respon­ sible for military government, took advantage of Hitler’s attitude as soon as the situation in the North Caucasus crystallized. Armed with a variety of reports stressing the far-reaching help tendered the Germans by the indigenous population and the need for a positive policy statement, Wagner urged Hitler to make a ‘ public declaration about political intentions in the Caucasus, guarantee of full political independence in close military and economic co-operation with the Greater German Reich’. Indeed, on September 8, Hitler issued a directive authorizing the furtherance of indigenous puppet regimes among the Caucasian nationalities and placing the Army Group Commander in complete charge, subject to co-ordination with Goring and Rosenberg.2 Now Stauffenberg, Altenstadt, and Bräutigam worked out a detailed agreement. In the Caucasus, for once, ‘ terms like liberty, independence, and collaboration were to be employed’ . Moreover, unlike all other Soviet areas, no forced labour was to be conscripted here.3 Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea*. Once the Reich had reached Baku and could roam through Anatolia, Hitler was ready to let Italy have a slice of the Near Eastern cake. (Annex V to minutes, April 13, 1942, Führer Conferences on Matters Dealing With the German N a v y , 1942 [Washington : U .S . Department of the Navy, 1946], p. 65 ; Elizabeth Wiskemann, The Rome-Berlin Axis [New York : Oxford University Press, 1949], p. 286.) 1 Lammers to Ribbentrop, Ju ly 12, 1942, E A P 99/394*, C R S . At the same time, he told Himmler that German interests demanded control of the oil but not necessarily annexation of the Caucasus. (Himmler to Schellenberg, Ju ly 14, 1942, E A P i 6 i b - i2 / i 2 4 #, C R S.) 2 Wagner, ‘ Notizen für Führer-Vortrag’ , September 1942*, and Hitler, directive, September 8, 1942, D W /A A 1 7 * , C R S . When, after difficult negotia­ tions, Bräutigam was assigned to represent him at L ist’s headquarters, Rosenberg let himself be persuaded to issue a set of instructions which reflected the peculiar climate in which policy for the Caucasus was being formulated. For geopolitical and ethnographic reasons, the Reich ‘ will be expected to evince an utmost measure of sensitivity, tact, and ability to adjust. . . . Unlike the Ukraine, the Central and Northern sectors, the style of administration [must] combine greater discretion with extensive use of indigenous residents devoted to the Reich.’ (Rosenberg, ‘ Anweisung für den Bevollmächtigten des RM fdbO . beim Oberkommando der Heeresgruppe A ’ , October 27, 19 4 2 *, E A P 99/36*, C R S .) 3 [Altenstadt,] ‘ Niederschrift über die Besprechung’ , September 13, 1942, E A P 99 /471*, C R S .

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The propaganda directives and the instructions distributed to the German troops marching south were accordingly redrafted. Outstanding in this connection was the attitude of Colonel General (later Field-Marshal) Ewald von Kleist, commander of the First Panzer Army and later the entire Army Group. The Commanding General [the protocol of an address by Kleist read] based himself on the Führer’s order that the German armed forces shall make the population into their friend. . . . The best propaganda, inward and outward, is a satisfied and hopeful population who knows that it faces a better future than under the rule of tsars and Stalin. The people must know that we are trying to do our best even if we cannot give it everything it wishes . . . that we are of good will. As a matter of principle, Kleist refused to draw qualitative dis­ tinctions between ‘ Mountaineers’, Cossacks, and Russians. ‘ We need them all,’ he declared in defiance of Rosenberg’s thesis, ‘ and the Russians are no exception, for they of all people are valuable. . . . Today they are no longer in conflict with the aborigines.’ 1 This attitude permeated the directives of the Army, which issued appeals to the population promising freedom and plenty — but by Hitler’s orders a specific reference to political independence was deleted.2 German troops were ordered (1) To treat the population of the Caucasus as friends. . . . (2) To lay no obstacles in the path of the Mountaineers striving to abolish the collective farm system. (3) To permit the reopening of places of worship of all denomi­ nations. . . . (4) To respect private property and pay for requisitioned goods. (5) To win the confidence of the people by model conduct. (6) To give reasons for all harsh measures affecting the population. (7) To respect especially the honour of the women of the Caucasus.3 Schickedanz was meanwhile making plans for his festive entry into Tiflis and the ceremonial opening of his ‘ court’. His staff had 1 [Von Kleist,] ‘ Schlussbemerkungen des Herrn Oberbefehlshabers December 15, 1942, E A P 99/37*, C R S . 2 W iStab Ost [O K V R Dr. Stock] to Riecke, August 20, 1942, W i/ID 2.678*, C R S. 3 [Heeresgruppe ‘ A ’ ,] Befehl an alle im Kaukasus eingesetzten Truppen [n.d., probably August 1942]. Other instructions, issued on lower Echelons, went into further details regarding the social structure, patriarchal customs, hospitality, drinks, and military honour. T h e Propaganda Ministry, on its part, advised the press that ‘ because of its geographic and ethnic characteristics, the Caucasus area must be treated in an entirely different manner from the Soviet areas heretofore occupied’ . (Zeitschriftendienst [Berlin], items no. 7390 and 7446 [August 14 and 2 1, 1942]. See also Engelbert Graf, ‘ Die Freiheitskämpfe der Kaukasusvölker’, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung [Berlin], November 1, 1942.

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already been selected; no fewer than 1200 men were to follow him. His desire to be absolute master was greater than his intelligence or even his bonds of loyalty to Rosenberg. Schickedanz was afraid that the military would ‘ make a mess of the Caucasus’ and turn it over to him, if at all, only after pursuing a policy of misplaced liberalism. Hence he accused the followers of what he called the Army orientation within the OMi of conspiring with the military to pursue a ‘ sentimental’ course. Afraid of being outplayed, he de­ manded that they submit all correspondence pertaining to the Caucasus to him — with the result that his desk was flooded with so much paper work that he was unable to keep up with it. Schickedanz’s only support came from the Nikuradze staff and those Nazi officials who wished to obtain high positions in the future administration of the Caucasus. The sole outsiders inclined to work with him were the economic agencies: both aimed at the direct exploitation of the Caucasus by the Reich and opposed all concessions to the people. This community of outlook — already evidenced in the Goring-Koch entente — was most strikingly exemplified in the plans for the utilization of Caucasian oil. Rosen­ berg, ‘ recognizing’ from the start the insistence of the Army and Four-Year Plan on these demands, provided for the assignment of a responsible official representing the economic agencies as chief of an ‘ oil commission operating in authoritarian fashion’ who would work as the ‘ closest collaborator’ of Schickedanz.1 Goring, who disliked Schickedanz, succeeded, in co-operation with others, in appointing a non-Rosenberg man, the capable Ambassador Her­ mann Neubacher, to this position. Neubacher was to be ‘ at the side o f’, but not ‘ subordinate’ to, the Reich Commissar so far as the Caucasus oil was concerned.2 A new body was just then established as a formally independent 1 Rosenberg, appendix to ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2*, April 7, 1941, Document 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 556. 2 Etzdorf, ‘ Diary* (entry for August 12, 1941), Document N G -2 7 7 5 * . Actually something of a backstage bargain had been struck in advance : Goring withdrew his nomination of Neubacher as Reichskommissar for the Caucasus and consented to Schickedanz’s appointment, in return for which Rosenberg agreed to relinquish control over the oil resources there. (See also Lammers to Ribbentrop, May 30, 19 41, E A P 99/394*, C R S ; Otto Bräutigam, ‘ Überblick über die besetzten Ost­ gebiete* [Tübingen : Institut für Besatzungsfragen, 1954], p. 7.) The following account of the Konti Oel is based largely on interviews G -6, G -9 ; Kontinentale Oel A .G ., ‘ Gründungsbericht*, March 27, 1941, Document N I-2 0 2 3 * ; and ‘ Eine deutsche Oel-Holding Gemeinschaftsgründung*, Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, March 30, 19 4 1. See also Documents N I-2 0 18 * , N I-2 0 2 1* , N I D -15 4 2 4 * , N O K W 2730 * ; Kleist, op. cit. pp. 175-9. The board of auditors [Aufsichtsrat] included General Thomas, Minister Walther Funk, Heinrich Bütefisch (of I.G . Farben), and others. See also A . E. Gunther, ‘ The German W ar for Crude Oil in Europe*, The Petroleum Times (London), L I (1947), 12 12 -3 .

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corporation under the name of Kontinentale Öl Aktiengesellschaft. The Konti Oel, as it became known, reflected a backstage agreement of Goring with Rosenberg, who once again surrendered his ‘ special pleading’ when superior German interests were called into play. Konti Oel’s board of directors included, among others, a high official of I.G . Farben and o,f the Four-Year Plan, and Schickedanz. According to Göring’s directive, cleared with Rosenberg and reluct­ antly acceded to by the Foreign Office, Konti Oel was given a 99year monopoly for the exploitation of all oil resources, production and distribution of mineral oil derivatives on the entire territory of the Soviet Union, in return for the payment of 7^ per cent royalties to the Reich. The exploitation plans amounted to the crudest imperialism. As a German colonel associated with it frankly told an emigre leader, ‘ At last we Germans will have a chance to enrich ourselves’ . The unpublicized agreement did arouse the hostility of some diplo­ mats, and even Turkish-oriented experts on Rosenberg’s staff protested that ‘ it was a worse affair than what German propaganda was making of the British-Iraqi deal’ . Their hope was that Neubacher would be a neutralizing influence on Schickedanz and some of the over-zealous war economists. In practice, Konti Oel remained of little consequence. During the short-lived occupation of the North Caucasus, only the Maikop (Neftegorsk) and Malgobek fields fell into German hands after their thorough destruction by the Red A rm y; neither the Groznyi nor the Baku fields were ever abandoned by the Soviet forces. In the oil areas under their control, the Germans feverishly sought to restore production with the aid of a special para-military ‘ Technical Brigade for Mineral Oil’ (TBM ), whose tangible accomplishments were virtually nil. Konti Oel dispatched a team of specialists, who settled quietly in Kislovodsk to await, in vain, the capture of Groznyi. With the German retreat at the end of 1942 the question of oil from the Caucasus once and for all vanished from the domain of actuality for the Reich.1 In similar manner, the role which the SS was permitted to play in the Caucasus was narrowly circumscribed. The Security Service had its ‘ action teams’ on the spot, and they were responsible for brutality and abuse. Yet withal the military command managed to keep them more successfully reined-in than had either civilian or Army authorities farther north. Even the SS combat units, such as the Wiking Division, were quickly slapped down by Kleist when 1 Interviews G -6, H -81 ; Zeitschriftendienst, item no. 7 15 6 (July 3, 1942) ; Speer, ‘ 5. Besprechung der Zentralen Planung*, M ay 15, 1942, Document N O K W 306* ; Bräutigam, letter to author, August 20, 1955.

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they sought to obey orders from SS headquarters in Berlin rather than from the Army Group.1 The Germans’ task was further facilitated by a unique develop­ ment in the annals of the war years: the popular revolts which broke out among some of the Caucasus Mountaineers in the wake of the general Soviet chaos early in the war. Most widespread in the Moslem areas, particularly among the Chechens and Karachai, these rebellions prepared the ground for a change of regime and also impressed the Germans, when they arrived in the North Caucasus in August-September 1942, with the existence of more active ‘ governmental’ nuclei than they had encountered farther north.2 The revolts were symptomatic of widespread disaffection in the North Caucasus, not unlike the crisis that occurred in the path of the German armies in the summer of 1941. Faced with a concentrated German onslaught and a lack of support from the indigenous population, the Red Army retreated from Rostov to the Greater Caucasus Mountains without giving battle, holding fast primarily to the major southward routes — and to the Groznyi oilfields. German Rule in the North Caucasus The distinctive policy pursued under Army auspices in the North Caucasus was most conspicuous in the territory of the small Moun­ taineer nationalities who had enjoyed, formally at least, a measure of autonomy and cultural independence under Soviet rule.3 In the Karachai region the bulk of the Moslem Mountaineers accorded the Germans a more genuine welcome than in most other occupied areas. A local teacher, Madzhir Kochkarov, had assumed authority in the capital, Mikoyan-Shakhar, several days before the arrival of the Germans, who promptly made him mayor of the city. A few weeks later, they sanctioned the formation of a Karachai ‘ National Committee’ under an anti-Soviet peasant, Kadi Bairamukov, 1 Himmler file n * ; interviews G - n , G -1 9 ; Bräutigam, ‘ Diary**, L C . 2 There is as yet no adequate account of these rebel movements. The most thorough and valuable account, which probably exaggerates the political sagacity and independence of the revolutionaries, is Alexander Uralov (Avtorkhanov), Narodoubiistvo v S S S R (Munich : Svodobnyi Kavkaz, 1952). While German attempts were made to parachute ‘ support9 to the rebels and establish contact with them across the front line, the revolts cannot be attributed to German activities. 3 North Osetia was never fully occupied and no extensive government machinery was established there. Only the fringes of the Chechen-Ingush Republic were reached by the Germans. The predominantly Slavic areas to the north of the mountains — Krasnodar and Stavropol’ provinces — received a military govern­ ment substantially similar to that in other parts of the occupied R S F S R but slightly more responsive to popular aspirations. Unfortunately documentation on the remaining two areas, Kabarda and Karachai, where more significant changes were introduced, is scant.

ii.

T H E NORTH C A U CA SU S

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which was (without fanfare or even official approval from Berlin) given some genuine authority in regional government. The out­ ward high point of the occupation was the celebration of Bairam, the Moslem holiday, in Kislovodsk on October 1 1 . Köstring, Schiller, and other high German officials were presented with precious gifts by the local Committee. The Germans, on their part, pledged the early dissolution of collective farms and announced the formation of a Karachai volunteer squadron of horsemen to fight with the German Army. Köstring, whose speech in Russian evoked enthusiasm in the crowd, was literally lifted on the natives’ arms and tossed in the air as a token of acclaim and honour.1 In Berlin, Wagner and Altenstadt approved of the regional government. The lengths to which the authorities were willing to go in this instance was best illustrated by the unique procedure of recognizing the claim of the Karachai Committee to former state property : The headquarters of Army Group ‘ A ’ has decreed that the former [Soviet] state property in the Karachai Autonomous Region is in trustee­ ship of the Karachai nationality. Accordingly the Karachai Regional Committee has claim to the proceeds of state enterprises, forests, etc., as directed by Army Group ‘ A ’ on November 8, 1942.12 The policy of giving indigenous groups some actual control over internal and cultural affairs as well as some authority in economic life apparently brought large rewards to the Germans : during the entire occupation, there was no evidence of anti-German activity in the Karachai area.3 In the Kabardino-Balkar area, the Mountaineers likewise accorded the Germans a warm welcome. While the Kabardins were somewhat reserved, the Moslem Balkars were particularly co­ operative.4 Here too the Germans permitted the formation of a regional committee headed by a local lawyer, Selim Shadov. Ac­ cording to his memoirs, the Germans (and to a lesser extent, the Rumanian occupying forces) ‘ respected the indigenous authorities’, staging formal conferences with Army officials, including the 1 Interviews G - i , G -2, H -81 ; Erich Kern, Dance of Death (New York : Scribner, 1951), pp. 124 -5 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 106-14. 2 Sonderstab Oberst Nagel [Wi Kdo 16], report, November 30, 1942, W i/ID 2 .13 5 4 * , C R S . 3 See also Einsatzgruppen Reports, September-December 19 4 2 * ; and Schünemann, ‘ Eine Fahrt durch das Gebiet der Karatschajer*, Deutsche A ll­ gemeine Zeitung, November 4, 1942. 4 Until the war, there had been more unrest among the Balkars, who live in the higher mountain areas and are closely akin to the Karachai, than among the better adjusted Kabardins, a branch of Circassians living in the valleys.

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Field-Marshal himself. They willingly granted autonomy in cultural and religious affairs; gradually local economic problems were also turned over to the committee. On December 18 the Kurman ceremonies were held in N al’chik, the seat of the indigenous ad­ ministration, in the presence of German dignitaries. Again gifts were exchanged, with the local officials giving the Germans magnifi­ cent steeds and receiving in return Korans and captured weapons, and Bräutigam made a public address about the lasting bonds of German friendship with the peoples of the Caucasus. Though roundly criticized for a variety of abuses and generally acclaimed with less enthusiasm than its counterpart in Karachai, the government of Kabarda in the sixty-five days of its existence gained general popular acceptance.1 The ‘ new course’ pursued in the North Caucasus was high­ lighted by several specific measures. Prompt decision to reopen mosques and churches apparently evoked widespread satisfaction. Likewise, the election (rather than appointment) of local elders was acclaimed — though, in practice, often violated. When the SD em­ barked on its extermination of the Jews, it encountered a special situation with regard to the Tats, or ‘ Mountain Jew s’, who had for centuries resided among the aborigines and were considered a fully indigenous element. When ordered to wear ‘ yellow stars’ as a prelude to their liquidation, the Tats took their case to the Nal’chik Regional Committee, which promptly raised the problem with the Army staff. In December the latter ruled that the Tats were not to be discriminated against, and for once the SD was forced to desist.2 The problem arousing the greatest amount of dispute was the collective farms. While elsewhere under the German occupation — as will be shown in a subsequent chapter — a slow and often nomi­ nal agrarian reform was instituted, in the Caucasus a procedure was adopted which went further in meeting popular aspirations. Especially in the pastoral regions, more rapid reprivatization of cattle-holdings and land ownership was decreed, though in the grain-producing steppe regions the reform differed but little from that in the adjacent and Ukrainian provinces.1 1 [Shadov,] ‘ Natsional’noe pravitel’stvo v svobodnoi Kabardino-Balkarskoi respublike’ , M S #, pp. 2-8 ; interviews G - 1 1 , G -19 , H -81, H-89, H -354. 2 Interview H -354 ; ‘ Tatskii vopros v period 1942 goda*, M S * ; Rudolf Loewenthal, ‘ The Judeo-Tats in the Caucasus’, His toria Judaic a, xiv (April 1952), 79. Officially the Nazis classified the Tats as Jews. -1 Interviews G -2, G -6, H -89 ; [Shadov,] op. cit.'pp. 4-7. When the central economic staff for the East decided that in the Caucasus ‘ not agricultural communes but private economies are to be created’ , General Wagner urged Hitler to promise the dissolution of collective farms, for this ‘ will be one of the most effective propa­ ganda measures’ . Since, however, many German economists objected to prompt

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In spite of the special policy pursued, it would be historically false to depict German rule in the Caucasus as an idyll unmarred by abuse and brutality. Looting, physical maltreatment, and dis­ crimination were widespread. Economic exploitation was attempted on a wide scale. In cases of doubt, military demands had priority over indigenous interests. German reprisals for killings or pillage of Army stocks were as swift and savage as elsewhere in occupied Europe. Various Sonderführer — that peculiar assimilated rank which to many Russians symbolized the uniformed German inter­ preter or military government official — adopted the same methods they had used with impunity farther north. The clamour for the release of prisoners of war remained unanswered. After evacuations, drafts, and purges the lack of manpower was severe. The tactfulness and flexibility of the German administration did not go beyond the narrow bounds of self-interest as the Army and economic agencies interpreted it. German monopoly of oil and mineral resources was beyond dispute. And the extermination of Jews was begun with the same thoroughness as everywhere else. In spite of all this, German rule in the North Caucasus did not evoke the violent popular disillusionment and eventual hostility which it had farther north.1 This fact cannot be adequately ex­ plained without taking into account the brevity of the occupation. As the German offensive halted and material conditions deteriorated towards the end of 1942, pro-German sentiments began to ebb ; yet, in the words of a refugee, ‘ there was not enough time for thorough­ going disillusionment’ . Changes of attitude were not yet translated into hostile action. Furthermore, the nature of the nationality problem — and the more ‘ solicitous’ policy pursued — differed substantially from that in both the Ukraine and Belorussia. The grant of a modicum of home rule was not predicated on Balkar or Karachai aspirations to sovereign statehood. Here autonomy was not a stepping-stone to acrimonious feuds between separatists and federalists, or between proponents of the Rosenberg concept and the advocates of a unitary policy. Applied to a thinly populated area, largely Moslem and nonand complete reprivatization, a compromise was reached by which in the pastoral areas (inhabited by the non-Slavic Mountaineers) kolkhozes would be abolished, while in the northern flatlands communes would be maintained but with larger holdings with more privileges to the individual household than were contemplated in the Ukraine. (W iStab Ost, V O bei O KH /Gen.Q u., ‘ Vortragsnotiz für den Herrn G en .Q u .\ June 29, 19 4 2 * ; W iStab Ost, ‘ Durchführung der Agrarordnung im Gebiet des Nordkaukasus’, September 24, 1942, W i/ID 40 3*, C R S.) Though actually many collectives were promptly abolished, the reform was not officially enacted until December 1942. 1 Interviews H -10 1, H -13 5 , H -18 2, H -354.

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industrial, regional autonomy struck a responsive cord without creating violent and new conflicts among either German or indigenous circles. Finally, German support of the minor nationalities in the North Caucasus did not have the anti-Russian edge which the Ostminis­ terium sought to sharpen in Ostland and the Ukraine. Though occasionally discriminated against, the Slavic population was active and prominent, and Russian remained the official and only common language of the region.1

The occupation was as spectacular as it was short-lived. Arriving full of optimism and anticipating an early push into Transcaucasia, the Germans soon found themselves frustrated and all but cut off — a situation mirrored in Kleist’s (probably apocryphal) message to Berlin : In front of me, no enemy ; Behind me, no supplies. With the battle of Stalingrad draining all available resources, and with Soviet forces in the Caucasus gradually restored to combat readiness, the troops south-east of Rostov were in danger of being isolated. Only in January 1943, however, did Hitler permit them to retreat intact rather than risk utter annihilation. With the with­ drawal accomplished, only a small area around the delta of the Kuban’ River and the Taman’ peninsula remained in German hands until September 1943 as a bridgehead from which a new attack — which never came about — was to be launched. In the latter period of 1943, as the military situation worsened, German policy became more intransigent. Hundreds of suspects were killed for helping non-existent partisans; in violation of directives, forced labour conscription was begun; whole stretches of land were laid waste and all inhabitants driven out. All inhibitions were swept aside as the Army indiscriminately requisitioned and evacuated, liquidated and destroyed. In the face of adversity, the tactics of calculated generosity evaporated, and Army policy reverted to what it was elsewhere in the occupied East. Caucasian Sunset Turkey disappointed German hopes by staying out of the war. It remains conjectural whether or not it would have entered if German troops had pushed on to Batum and Baku. Papen, for one, 1 Interviews G - n , G -19 .

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was quite optimistic when, at the peak of German victories, Foreign Minister Sükrü Saracoglu became Premier of Turkey. Publicly, to be sure, Saracoglu was careful to steer the course of neutrality he had carefully charted during the preceding year. . . . Turkey has sought no adventures beyond her frontiers [he told the National Assembly]. She will continue to seek the means of remaining outside the war. . . . We have contractual or actual relations with states in both the opposing camps. Our attitude will be equally friendly and loyal towards these states.1 Yet the German ambassador and observers in Berlin sought to find veiled pro-German sentiments in his pronouncements. Moreover, in a private talk with Papen, Saracoglu went further. The Russian problem [Papen cited him as having said] can be solved by Germany only if at least half the Russians are killed, and if, furthermore, Germany once and for all pulls out from under Russian control all the Russified regions inhabited by alien national minorities, sets them on their own feet, wins them to voluntary co-operation with the Axis powers, and rears them as enemies of Slavism. If these were his words, albeit made in private, they were indeed strong language for the leader of a neutral country. They were apparently calculated to impress upon Papen Turkey’s ‘ legitimate interest’ in the fate of the Turkic minorities of the Soviet Union. Moreover, Saracoglu urged Berlin not to turn its back on the Turkic emigres, for ‘ the minorities will not disappoint u s’. What he asked was in substance German recognition for the separatist ‘ national committees’ , a favour Hitler had emphatically vetoed a few months earlier.12 These suggestions, officially transmitted at the highest level, produced the contrary effect. Intimidated by Hitler’s ire, Ribbentrop decided in mid-September that the Ankara embassy was to ‘ show greater reserve’ in such matters. ‘ We are not interested at this time’ , he wrote, ‘ in entering into any conversations on these questions with the Turkish government and thereby prejudging the solution of these problems. We have no reason to give the Turks any assurances. . . .’ 3 His attitude correctly reflected Hitler’s adamant refusal to conciliate either Turkey or its refugee proteges. While Germany was 1 The Times (London), August 6, 1942. 2 Papen to German Foreign Office, August 26, 1942, G P T , pp. 97-104. See also H T T , p. 546. 3 Ribbentrop to Papen, September 12, 1942, G P T , pp. 116 -20 . It cannot be verified whether or not this draft was actually sent to Papen.

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winning, there was no need to share the spoils. At the same time, the collaboration of large numbers of Moslem Mountaineers (as well as the formation of ‘ volunteer ’ fighting units on the German side) had impressed the Führer. But for one casual comment one might remain unaware of his own views. In discussing the Caucasian formations established by the Wehrmacht, he remarked in December 1942 : . . . I don’t know about these Georgians. They do not belong to the Turkic peoples. . . . I consider only the Moslems to be reliable. . . . All the others I deem unreliable. For the time being I consider the formation of these battalions of purely Caucasian peoples as very risky, while I don’t see any danger in the establishment of purely Moslem units. . . . In spite of all the declarations from Rosenberg and the military, I don’t trust the Armenians either.1 Hitler’s back-handed endorsement of the Moslems had been implicit in the sanctioning of Army policy in the North Caucasus; yet only here did it become clear that he had moved away from the presumptions of Aryan superiority and, ignoring his own doctrine, placed the Moslems not only above the Armenians but also above the Georgians, Rosenberg’s proteges. A few weeks later, however, the problem had become largely academic: the North Caucasus was lost, and no further Moslem areas were ever conquered by his men. Henceforth his decisions would affect only German treatment of Moslem collaborators. Moscow drew substantially the same conclusion as Hitler did from the events in the Caucasus. If the Führer deemed the Moslems there to be the most ‘ reliable’, the Soviet government found them sufficiently untrustworthy to liquidate the national republics and districts of the Chechen-Ingush, Karachai, and Balkarians (just as those of the Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, and Kalmyks) and to exile their population.2 To the people in these areas the brief 1 FH Q , ‘ Lagebesprechung’ , December 12, 19 4 2 *, UofP, pp. 3-5. This passage is omitted from the published edition, Felix Gilbert, ed., Hitler Directs His War (New York : Oxford University Press, 1950). 2 T h e ‘ liquidation’ of the Moslem areas of the North Caucasus was decreed on February 1 1 , 1944, and promptly carried out. (See Kolarz, op. cit. ; Uralov, op. cit. ; Robert Magidoff, The Kremlin vs. The People [Garden City : Doubleday, 1 953 ], PP* 22 "3 5 A . H., ‘ Kak byla unichtozhena Checheno-Ingushskaia respublika’ , Sotsialisticheskii Vestnik [New York], no. 600 [September 1947], pp. 178-9.) It is a matter of speculation to what extent the German press contributed to the Soviet view of their ‘ defection’ . On February 2 1, 1943, an article in Goebbels’ weekly, Das Reich, spoke of the many ‘ new allies’ among these nationalities who had remained behind when the German troops left. Five days later the article was withdrawn and an order issued to make no further reference to the matter because it ‘jeopardizes the existence of various nationalities’ . (Erwin Kirchhof, ‘ Neue Verbündete’ , Das Reich [Berlin], viii [1943], February 21 ; and Zeitschriftendienst, item no. 8447 [February 26, 1943].)

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foreign interlude thus spelled a tragic doom.1 For the Germans the retreat from the Caucasus meant an end to their dreams, coinciding as it did with the catastrophe at Stalingrad. The brief months of Army rule over the Mountaineers had shown that an alternative to the negative policy applied elsewhere could viably be pursued to good effect. At the same time, the object lesson of the Caucasus, much as it taught some of its first-hand participants, remained unheeded in Berlin. The North Caucasus, conceived as a special case, remained an exception in German Ostpolitik. 1 T he Kalmyks experienced a fate rather similar to that of the other liquidated nationalities. In their area, too, the brief German occupation, taking into account local traditions and Buddhist rites, seemed to meet with little popular hostility. A considerable number of Kalmyks joined the Germans in retreating westwards, some of whom later fought with the Wehrmacht against Soviet partisans. T he Kalmyk A S S R was ordered abolished by Moscow on December 27, 1943. (See interviews H -15 , H -22, H -76 ; S. Galdanov, ‘ Narod, dlia kotorogo ne ostalos’ mesta pod solntsem*, Novoe Russkoe Slovo [New York], July 25-26, 1947 ; Shamba Balinov, ‘ K 8-i godovshchine likvidatsii Kalmytskoi Respubliki’, Kavkaz [Munich], no. 4-5 [November-December 19 5 1], pp. 38-4 1.)

CHAPTER XIII

TH E C R E S C E N T AND THE S W A S T I K A : (|2) T A T A R S A N D T U R K S I am trying to empty the Crimea to make way for our own colonists.— A dolf H itler

Crim ea: Gibraltar and Spa S c y t h i a n s and Cimmerians, Huns and Goths, Tatars and Turks had roamed through the mountains of the Crimea and basked in its beautiful sun. Formally an ‘ autonomous republic’ under Soviet rule, it remained the scene of social, political and religious tensions.1 With its mixed Tatar and Slavic population and its strategic position in the Black Sea, its fate was bound to be of primary importance to the Reich. Of the seven complexes into which Rosenberg divided the U .S.S.R . in his first blueprint, one was the ‘ Ukraine with the Crimea’ . His subsequent memoranda likewise made it clear that the Crimea was to be part of the future Greater Ukraine under the name of Taurida.12 The considerable number of handwritten corrections which Rosenberg made on his drafts suggests that he had some difficulty in writing this section. Indeed, while Taurida was to go to the Ukraine, Rosenberg granted that the number of Ukrainians there was small. Simultaneously he insisted that Germany must have direct control of the peninsula. It took a Rosenberg to ignore the conflict between these elements. Rosenberg stressed the Germanic background of the Crimea to justify Nazi intentions. Not only had Targe areas of the Crimea belonged to German colonists prior to the first World W ar’, but it had been the Crimea ‘ where the last Goths had survived as late as the sixteenth century’ . Moreover, the Crimea and its approaches are a strategic key position for the rule of the entire Black Sea and the control of the Ukraine by Germany. . . . 1 For the background, see Walter Kolarz, Russia and Her Colonies (New York : Praeger, 1952), pp. 76-81 ; and Edige Kirimal, Der nationale Kampf der Krim­ türken (Emsdetten : Lechte, 1952). 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 1 ’ , April 2, 1941, Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 549. Taurida (or Tauris) was the ancient Greek name for the Crimea. In German usage, it also included the northern approaches of the peninsula. G.R.R.— S 253

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‘ Therefore’, Rosenberg declared in a typical non sequitur, the acquisition of the Crimea and its approaches by Germany ‘ is entirely justifiable as compensation for what was lost’ (presumably referring to the land holdings of German colonists, nationalized during the Soviet Revolution). If furthermore [he continued] the German Reich, which is saving the Ukraine, is prepared to extend the Ukraine’s sovereign area [Hoheits­ gebiet] beyond its ethnic boundaries as far as the Volga (for reasons of border strategy), the demand for the Crimea is likewise justified.1 While the Crimea was thus technically assigned to the Ukraine, in actuality the Reich intended to retain it under direct German rule. It was a revealing example of what Rosenberg meant by Ukrainian ‘ sovereignty’. Once again, when Germany’s own demands were given priority, his ‘ compassion’ for the non-Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union vanished. Rosenberg’s plans for annexing the Crimea were a direct echo of Hitler’s twofold argument for its Germanization. The Crimea was to become the ‘ German Gibraltar’ controlling the Black Sea. At the same time, it provided an appealing locale for the settlement of Germans in what Robert Ley, chief of the German labour front and of the ‘ Strength through Jo y ’ movement, promptly defined as ‘ one large German spa’ .2 Realism and fantasy mingled in en­ gendering plans of conquest. At the policy-making conference of July 16, 1941, Hitler singled out the Crimea among all the areas of the Soviet Union ‘ to be cleared of all foreigners \i.e. non-Germans] and to be settled by Germans’ . The plan was promptly elaborated in greater detail: ‘ The Crimea with its Tauride hinterland shall go to Germany, and its Russian population shall be moved to Russia [proper] ’. According to the well-informed Etzdorf, Hitler commented at this point: ‘ Where to, I really don’t care a b it; Russia is big enough’ .3 In the following months, in spite of his more pressing concerns, Hitler found time to give some thought to the resettlement of the Crimea, which, in view of its alleged Gothic heritage, was to be renamed Gotenland. When Rosenberg went to see Hitler in December 1941, the Führer reiterated that later he would ‘ wish the Crimea to be entirely cleared’ of its non-German population. In his account of the conference, Rosenberg added : 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar in der Ukraine’ , M ay 7, 19 4 1, Document 10 28-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 572-3. See also Documents 10 3 5 -P S * and 10 58-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 620. 2 Interviews G -5, G -19 . 3 [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk’, July 16, 19 41, Document 2 2 1 - L , T M W C , xxxviii, 87 ; Etzdorf, ‘ D iary’ (entry for August 12, 1941), Document N G -2 7 7 5 * .

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I told him that I too had already worried about the renaming of the cities, and I thought of renaming Simferopol’ Gotenberg, and Sevastopol’ Theodorichhafen, in accordance with the directives of the Führer.1 It is clear from the context of various directives that, some time in early 1942, Hitler issued instructions to proceed with the re­ settlement of the Crimea, but their text has not been located. A team of SS researchers and planners began detailing the colonization project, in line with the S S ’s special responsibility for matters of German settlement.12 An early project, intended to facilitate both strategic and demographic operations, was the construction of an Autobahn linking the Crimea with the German network of super­ highways, so that (according to Hitler) one could ‘ do the whole distance easily in two days’ .3 This phase evoked no opposition — but remained on paper. More difficult, even in the planning stage, was the transfer of populations. The first group to be moved to the Crimea was the 140,000 ethnic Germans residing in Rumanian-held ‘ Transnistria’. The plan was held in abeyance until the Crimea was fully subdued ; by that time, an ingenious scheme had been ad­ vanced to solve the festering German-Italian dispute over the South Tyrol by moving the South Tyrolese to the Crimea.4 The project, stressing the dual advantages of Germanizing the Crimea and eliminating a source of friction between the Reich and Italy, was submitted to the Führer by his appointee Generalkommissar of the Crimea, Gauleiter Alfred Frauenfeld. Hitler enthusiastically approved: I think the idea is an excellent one. . . . I think, too, that the Crimea will be both climatically and geographically ideal for the South Tyrolese, 1 H T T , pp. n o , 621 ; Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über eine Unterredung beim Führer am 1 4 .1 2 .1 9 4 1 ’ , Document 15 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 272. Though no public announcement was made about the proposed destiny of the Crimea, the German press prepared the ground by a variety of articles stressing the IndoEuropean and above all Gothic background of the peninsula, which ostensibly provided the Nazis with ‘ historicity’ for their claims. See, for instance, Wir erobern die Krim (Neustadt : Pfälzische Verlagsanstalt, 1943), pp. 259-76 ; Hans-Joachim Kausch, ‘ A u f der K rim ’ , Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung, July 16, 1943 1 Josef Tobias, ‘ Die Halbinsel der Völkerschicksale’ , Deutsche UkraineZeitung (Rovno), August 30, 1942. 2 Interviews G -6, H -10 6 ; Meyer-Hetling, report, February 19, 1942, Docu­ ment N G - i n 8 #. 3 H T T , pp. 578, 599 ; Rosenberg to Meyer, October 20, 1941, Document 10 5 7 -P S * ; Document N G - i n 8 * . 4 In his notes for a report to Himmler on M ay 28, 1942, Ulrich Greifelt, head of the Resettlement Office, suggested postponing the actual transfer because of technical difficulties (Document N O - 3 i8 2 #). The objections had been presented at a conference under Warlimont by O K W and O M i personnel in M ay 1942. (Bräutigam, op. cit. p. 21.) See also Conrad F. Latour, ‘ Germany, Italy, and the South T y ro l’ , M S * (American University, 1955).

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and in comparison with their present settlement it will be a real land of milk and honey. Their transfer to the Crimea presents neither physical nor psychological difficulty. All they have to do is to sail down just one German waterway, the Danube, and there they are.1 The result was a specific Hitler directive early in July to evacuate all Russians from the Crim ea; the Tatars and Ukrainians would be moved out later if necessary. This -order is revealing in several respects. On the one hand, it shows that, without subscribing to Rosenberg’s thesis, Hitler none the less began his purge with the Russians — in part, it would seem, because of the desired concord with Turkey ; in part, because there was no ‘ logical’ place to move the Tatars as there was for the Russians. Equally interesting is the fact that Rosenberg had anticipated this plan; in line with his own concept, he had proposed in October 1941 that Russians, Jews, and Tatars be moved out of the peninsula, leaving only the Ukrain­ ians there when the German settlers started arriving.2 It is also worth noting that, once its protests proved futile, the OKW co­ operated. As early as July 6, 1942, a conference of Army and SS officers was held to outline such measures as the guarding of re­ settlement camps, liquidation of undesirables, and transportation facilities for the migration.3 After consulting with Hitler, Himmler was constrained to report that the Tyrolese movement had better be postponed until after the war. Now Frauenfeld and Greifelt worked out a new scheme calling for an eventual transfer of the 2000 Germans from Palestine to the Crim ea; the fact that most of them were in British hands did not deter the dreamers. Even Himmler now advised ‘ postpone­ ment’ of such fantasies until the spring of 1943 or ‘ another favourable moment’.4 The end of the resettlement effort is well shown in General Thomas’ files. In mid-August he had ventured to protest to Goring and Keitel about the contemplated evacuation of Russians and Ukrainians, if only because their removal — four-fifths of the population of the Crimea — would paralyse economic life. ‘ Gau­ leiter Frauenfeld’, he added, ‘ is likewise of the opinion that an evacuation of Russians and Ukrainians . . . is impossible at this time. One should remove merely the evil elements.’ 5 Three weeks later a 1 H T T , p. 548 (entry for Ju ly 2, 1942) ; Harry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tisch­ gespräche (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1951), p. 314. 2 Document 10 5 7 -P S *. 3 S S Obersturmführer Grothman to Rudolf Brandt, July 5, 1942, Document N O - 1734 *4 Himmler to Frauenfeld, Ju ly 10, 1942 ; Frauenfeld to Himmler, Ju ly 27, 1942 ; and Himmler to Frauenfeld, August 17, 1942 ; Document N O -2 4 17 * . 5 Thomas, ‘ Vortragsnotiz für Reichsmarschall und Chef O K W ’ , August 17, 942, W i/ID 2.6 02b*, C R S .

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telephone message from Göring’s office told Thomas to forget the whole matter: the evacuation would take place only after the w ar; and a few days later his liaison officer with Jodi’s staff reported that ‘ an evacuation of the Crimea is at present no longer under discus­ sion’.1 Himmler still had his staff proceed with ‘ all necessary planning for a later settlement of Germans’ in the peninsula, but as of late 1942 the programme was postponed indefinitely because of the military situation.2 As for the transfer of the Tatars, it was even more decisively postponed, with Himmler for once citing reasons of utility rather than principle : For the duration of the war, touching on the question of the Tatars and their transfer to consolidated areas by all means must be avoided. We must not bring the least unrest to these people who incline towards us and have faith in us. This would be a catastrophic error.3 In principle, Hitler fully approved of the resettlement plans. Only once, at the height of German-Turkish negotiations, did he envisage restricting German fortifications in the Crimea to a single base, so as to establish ‘ really amicable relations with Turkey’ . Even then he urged : We must organize the Crimea in such a manner that, even in the dim future, we should never be constrained to leave to others the benefits of the work we have done there.4 Between Turkey and Germany The Crimean Tatars had strong traditional bonds to Turkey; the leaders of the Crimean separatist movement — who characteristic­ ally called themselves Crimean Turks — had established residence in Turkey; and of all the Turkic areas of the Soviet Union, the peninsula across the sea evoked in Ankara the greatest interest and memories of past possession. Soon after the German attack, therefore, various Turkish circles started dropping hints concerning the future of the Crimea. Some of these were brought directly to Papen’s attention. They boiled down to two concrete proposals : granting self-government to the Crimean Tatars as soon as the Germans had ‘ pacified’ the peninsula; and sending a Crimean Tatar delegation from Turkey to Berlin to act as advisers and perhaps 1 [O K W /W iR ü Amt,] ‘ Aktennotiz’ , September 9, 1942 ; and [O K W /W iR ü Amt,] VO bei W F S t [Major von Illberg], ‘ Aktennotiz’, September 14, 1942 ; both W i/ID 2.602b*, C R S . 2 G P T , pp. 86-9 ; S S P F Krim, ‘ Bericht über die Arbeitsergebnisse’ , M ay 31, 1944, Document N O -4009* ; interview G -14 . See also Conference at FH Q , 4Aktennotiz’ , August 17, 1942, Document N O -270 3*. 3 Himmler to H S S P F Russland-Süd and S S P F Krim, January 20, 1943, Document N O -220 9*. 4 H T T , pp. 478-9 ; and Picker, op. cit. p. 82 (entry for M ay 13, 1942).

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as representatives of their fellow-nationals. In early November 1941 Papen himself suggested to Berlin after the completion of the Crimean campaign, to establish there an administration in which the Crimean Tatars would significantly participate. This would have a strong political effect in Turkey.1 At the same time, General Erkilet asked the Auswärtiges Amt to issue visas to two Tatars, followers of Cafar Seydahmet, leader of the separatist emigres. In mid-November, Ambassador von Hentig, who handled Near Eastern affairs at the Foreign Office, informed the Turks that the two men could proceed to Berlin.2 They soon arrived in Germany and set to work.3 This was the only instance during the Soviet campaign where the Reich formally sanctioned the participation, albeit nominal, of non-belligerents. The deceptive nature of the German move becomes clear when one bears in mind that these spokesmen of Tatar nationalism were admitted at the very time when a firm decision had been taken to Germanize the Crimea completely. When the Turks reiterated their hope for an inde­ pendent Crimea, Rosenberg and Hitler agreed on the ‘ danger of a pan-Turanic movement’ and on refusing the two Crimeans ‘ from Constantinople’ permission to inspect prisoner-of-war camps where their fellow-nationals were interned. ‘ The only thing one might do’, Rosenberg’s notes indicated, ‘ is to separate the 250 Crimean Tatar prisoners of war and to treat them suitably, out of consideration for Turkey.’ 4 After the conquest of the Crimea they and other Tatar ‘ volun­ teers’ were organized in auxiliary military units to fight on the Ger­ man side. This was the only rationale which the German press was permitted to cite for Tatar ‘ rights ’ ; pointing to the numerical superiority of the Russians and Ukrainians in the peninsula, one author considered it ‘ therefore understandable that they [the Tatars] are hoping for a revision’ of their status. ‘ By their participation in the struggle against Bolshevism’, it was asserted, ‘ . . . the Tatars have won the right to have their interests considered’ in the future reorganization of Eastern Europe.5 This ‘ future reorganization’ remained studiedly undefined in 1 Papen to Weizsäcker, November io, 19 41, G P T , p. 44. 2 Hentig to Erkilet, November 17, 19 41, G P T , pp. 46-7. Seydahmet (or Ahmed Dzhaferoglu) had been the representative abroad of the Crimean Parliament in 19 19 and later prominent in the Prometheus movement. 3 Interview H -106 ; Kirimal, op. cit. p. 306. See also G P T , pp. 50-1. 4 Document 15 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 272 ; memorandum to Warlimont (transmitted by Dittmann), January 23, 1942, G P T , p. 68. 5 Gerhard Christoph, ‘ Die Halbinsel Krim*, Der nahe Osten (Berlin), iii (1942), pp. 143-5 ; Volk und Reich, May 1942, pp. 290-302. Six Crimean Tatar

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As the spa of all Europe [wrote- an author with the blessings of Nazi censorship], the Crimea will march forward to a great future within the European Grossraum economy.1 To those who could decipher Nazi verbiage, the implications were clear. The Army in the Crimea The German armies reached the Isthmus of Perekop in Septem­ ber 1941 and, after a victorious battle, penetrated the Crimea. During the winter months, however, Soviet forces landed on the eastern shore and recaptured Kerch and Feodosia. Only after new and bitter battles did the invading troops subdue the peninsula, recapturing Kerch and storming Sevastopol’ in May 1942, after a lengthy siege. The Crimea thus came under military occupation. Until late 1942, the Crimea was the headquarters of Field-Marshal von Manstein, commander of the Eleventh Army, later of FieldMarshal von Kleist, chief of Army Group ‘ A ’ . On the lower levels the military occupation was in many respects much like that farther north, on the mainland. There was some ‘ utilitarian’ restraint on the part of the troops, but there were also atrocities and violence whenever ‘ the situation demanded’ them.2 The tone was set by Manstein’s insistence that ‘ the JewishBolshevik system must be wiped out once and for all’. ‘ Therefore’, battalions were recruited for police and anti-partisan duties largely under the direction of the SD . While the German command found them helpful, the extreme nationalists looked upon them as the nucleus of a future ‘ Crimean army*. Among the rank and file their formation appears to have evoked neither enthusiasm nor violent hostility. For the orders providing for the recruitment of the Tatars and, in rather strong and unusual terms, for circumspect treatment of them by the Germans, see A O K n , O.Qu. to GenKdo Schwarzes Meer, O.Qu., January 6, 1942, Document N O K W -1 2 7 7 * ; A O K 1 1, Ic/AO, ‘ Tataren-Ersatz*, January 9, 1942, Document N O K W - 1 3 1 1 * ; Einsatzgruppe D, ‘ Die Rekrutierung der Krimtataren’ , February 15, 1942, Document N O K W -1 2 1 3 * . See also Kausch, ‘ Bericht über die Reise’ , June 26, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - 1 1 * , Y IV O . 1 Axel von Gadolin, Der Norden, der Ostraum und das neue Europa (Munich : Röhrig, 1943), p. 161. 2 On conditions in the German-occupied Crimea, see Michael M . Luther, ‘ The German Occupation of the Crimea in World War I T * (Russian Institute Essay, Columbia University, 1954), publ. as ‘ Die Krim unter deutscher Besatzung,’ Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte (Berlin), iii (1956), 28-98. Manstein’s behaviour is a chapter full of contradictory evidence, which both sides effectively marshalled at his trial in 1949. If the prosecution seems to have overstated the case against him, the apologia of his able British defence attorney must also be read with considerable reservations (R. T . Paget, Manstein : His Campaigns and His Trial [London : Collins, 1951]). See also Dietrich von Choltitz, Soldat unter Soldaten (Zürich : Europa-Verlag, 1951), ch. iv, v,

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the German soldier had to act ‘ as avenger for all the cruelties com­ mitted against him and the German people. . . .’ At a moment when food shortages were becoming a matter of vital concern and a source of serious popular resentment, he ordered : Especially in the hostile cities, a large part of the population will have to starve. In spite of this, none of the goods which the fatherland gives us at the cost of privations may, out of a sense of mistaken humaneness, be distributed to prisoners and to the population — unless they are in the service of the German Wehrmacht. And as far as anti-German elements were concerned, ‘ the population must be more afraid of our reprisals than of the partisans’.1 On the other hand, some efforts were to be made to attract the support of at least a segment of the population. ‘ The passivity of numerous allegedly anti-Soviet elements’, Manstein ordered, ‘ must yield to a clear decision in favour of active co-operation against Bolshevism. Where it does not exist, it must forcibly be brought about [erzwungen] by appropriate means.’ The premise here, as the Army command saw it, was ‘ just treatment of all non-Bolshevik elements of the population’. Strict ‘ respect of religious customs, especially of the Moslem Tatars ’ was ordered; the confiscation of the farmers’ ‘ last cow, the last chicken, or seed’ was forbidden; and an intricate system of bonuses and rewards was instituted for those elements of the population who actively assisted the occupying forces.2 The commanding general remained sceptical of the poten­ tialities of such a policy. Though willing to try this narrow-gauge non-political collaboration drive, Manstein admitted the difficulties of winning the support of the Soviet population. ‘ In the last analysis, their interests . . . differ from ours. ’ 3 Manstein acquiesced tacitly in the work of the SD action teams. In Simferopol’ the SD captured the card file of N K V D agents and suspects, and indiscriminately proceeded to shoot people listed therein. The liquidation of the Jews was carried out with the same ruthlessness as elsewhere.4 1 Manstein, order, November n , 19 4 1, Document 4064-PS, T M W C , xxxiv, 129 -32 ; Manstein, order, December 15, 19 41, Document N O K W -5 0 2 5*. 2 Ibid. ; Paget, op. cit. pp. 40-1 ; Luther, op. cit. ch. ii. 3 Manstein to Dirksen, M ay 9, 1943, G P T , pp. 135-6 . 4 Interview H -10 6 ; Documents N O K W -5 0 2 * and N O -25 4 6 * ; 4064-PS, T M W C , xxxiv, 1 3 1 . On the work of Einsatzgruppe D, see the transcript of the Nuremberg trial case, U .S . v. Ohlendorf et al. On the fate of the Krimchaks, see Rudolf Loewenthal, ‘ T he Extinction of the Krimchaks in World W ar II *, American Slavic and East European Review (New York), x, no. 2 (April 19 51), 130-6. On the other hand, the Karaims were not considered Jews and were spared. See Documents 084-PS, T M W C , xxv, 168 ; Occ E 4 - 1 3 * , Y IV O ; and Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution (New York : Beechhurst Press, 1953), pp. 24 1-2.

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Less clear-cut was the policy pursued with respect to the nation­ alities of the Crimea. As a result of the general directives from Berlin aimed primarily against the Great Russians, and reinforced by the officials of the SS, Ostministerium, and some Army echelons, the Russians residing in the Crimea were subjected to some dis­ crimination. They were extensively ousted from positions in the local government and economy, especially in the rural areas, and replaced with collaborating Tatars. On the other hand, a Russianlanguage newspaper, Golos Kryma, appeared under German censor­ ship along with one in Turkic, Azat Kirim. Probably the greatest deterrent to the implementation of a clear pro-Tatar policy was the insistent reminder by some Army officers that the Crimean Tatars constituted only a minority of the local population and that any ‘ realistic’ German policy must avoid antagonizing the Slavic element. It was further evident that only a fraction of the Tatars expressed articulate national feelings, although Moslem religious consciousness was widespread among them. Thus, when the Turkish faction, with Papen’s endorsement, pressed for local self-government in the Crimea, the Army decided upon a compromise solution. In effect it made a minor concession to local Tatar sentiment while avoiding the granting of political recognition: the formation of local Moslem committees was authorized ; the first was organized as early as mid-November 1941, and in 1942 a central Moslem Committee was authorized in Sim­ feropol’. Concerned primarily with local, religious and cultural rather than political affairs, the committees satisfied the aspirations of some Crimean Tatars for symbolic self-government, while German control over their overt activities assured the occupying power against the emergence of hostile trends.1 Like the other German-sponsored bodies intended to serve as innocuous ‘ fronts ’ — such as the Vlasov committee and the Belo­ russian separatists — the Moslem committees provided a con­ venient mantle for sub rosa efforts of non-Nazi activists. Though generally more anti-Soviet than anti-German, the latter — largely old Crimean nationalists who had returned from exile — occasionally worked independently, even at the risk of defying the German authorities. Thus in late 1942, under a spurious pretext, a gathering of various Moslem committees was induced to establish a ‘ plenum’ intended to become a representative body. The spiritus rector behind this effort was Ahmed özenbashly, a member of the Crimean cabinet in 1919 and a leading official until the dispersal of the Tatar 1 Kirimal, op. cit. pp. 305-7 ; RM fdbO ., Propaganda-Dienst, no. 3 (August 27, 1942), p. 8 ; Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O ,

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nationalist and fellow-travelling M illi Firka by the Communists in 1927. özenbashly now tried in effect to revive the organization and had the ‘ plenum’ grant him broad authority to negotiate with the Germans. With German setbacks and greater intransigence towards the Tatars during the following winter, however, the sense of dis­ appointment spread to nationalist circles. In 1943 Özenbashly was telling his associates that ‘ we have found ourselves between Scylla and Charybdis’ .1 özenbashly’s disillusionment was symptomatic of the general change that had come over the population. Initial anti-Soviet feeling had run high. No\\ many factors contributed to the cooling of pro-German sentiments; among them were worsening material conditions; conscription of forced labour; indiscriminate anti­ partisan operations, exacting a heavier toll among innocent civilians than among the bands; and German failure to institute a thorough­ going agrarian reform.2 A more positive and somewhat more lenient approach became apparent only in 1943 when von Kleist, retreating from the Caucasus, sought to apply to the Crimea some of his newly gained experience. In an independent move, he issued directives in February 1943 which reflected a different spirit from that which had heretofore prevailed. They came in the wake of the Army demands made at the December 1942 conference in Berlin and followed the setbacks at Stalingrad.3 Kleist now insisted that the reversal of military fortunes and the increasing decline in pro-German sentiment were due in large measure to German policy. More politically attuned than most of his fellow-generals, he ordered : 1 Interviews H -7, H -106, H -382 ; Wir erobern die Krim, pp. 286, 298. In November 1942, Özenbashly asked the Germans to recognize the Crimean Tatars as a distinct nation, permit the return of emigres, and establish a national and religious centre for the Crimean Tatars. (Azat Kirim [Simferopol’], November 19, 1942, cited in Kirimal, op. cit. p. 315 .) While Professor von Mende, in line with his general tendency, backed the Moslem committee project, Rosenberg himself, still intent on the Germanization plan, rejected the idea. See also Dittmann to Tippelskirch, August 5, 1942, G P T , P- **7 2 See Luther, op. cit., ch. iii, iv. The modest German agrarian reform was slow in coming, whereas the peasantry as elsewhere was overwhelmingly bent on regaining possession of the land. There­ fore in the spring of 1942 the Foreign Office, in an effort to prove its ‘ good w ill’ to Turkey, asked that the Tatars be given a privileged status in agriculture. HansJoachim Riecke, chief of Eastern agriculture, agreed to a change of rules : the Tatars were to have 40 per cent of their land transformed into communes during the first year (as compared with 10-20 per cent in the Ukraine) — a symbolic rather than a real privilege. (Riecke to Schulenburg, April 24, 1942, E A P 99/457*, C R S ; and RM fdbO. [Schiller,] 4Sonderbehandlung der Tataren bei der Durch­ führung der Agrarordnung’ , M ay 22, 1942, W i/ID .77*, C R S.) In practice, even the official reform was not carried out thoroughly. 3 See above, p. 153.

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(1) The inhabitants of the occupied Eastern territories in the area of Army Group ‘ A ’ are to be treated as allies. Treatment as inferiors strengthens the enemy’s will to resist and costs German blood. (2) The supply of the civilian population with food, especially bread, and also clothes, fuel, and consumer goods, is to be improved within the limits imposed by the war. . . . (3) Social services are to be expanded, e.g. supply of hospitals with medicines, and milk for women and children. (6) In principle, 20 per cent of all consumer goods produced are to be distributed among the civilian population. (7) The agrarian reform is to be carried out with greater dispatch. In 1943 at least 50 per cent of the collectives are to be transformed into communes. In the remaining collectives, the individual plots are to be given to the peasants as tax-free property. In appropriate cases individual farms are to be established. . . . (8) As a rule . . . the delivery quota for agricultural produce shall not exceed that under the Bolsheviks. . . . (12) The school system is to be promoted widely. (14) Religious practice is free and is not to be impeded in any way. . . .* This far-reaching and in many respects unique programme did not remain unknown to the higher authorities in Berlin. In particu­ lar, Riecke and Schiller protested that this represented unwarranted interference of the military in economic affairs — and also in hitherto civilian areas of administration which, as a result of the Soviet advance, had been returned to military jurisdiction. But Kleist would not be budged : Riecke’s protests, he mordantly replied, amounted to an endorsement of Erich Koch’s Helotentheorie.12 In June 1943, when Rosenberg toured the Ukraine and the Crimea, he delivered a lengthy lecture to Kleist’s military staff, reiterating his political views. Rosenberg himself admitted that the speech was an utter failure. Kleist and his staff insisted that the war must be fought with more positive and political methods than Rosenberg was willing to grant. The Ostminister, on the other hand, was disappointed because he failed to convert the Army officers : ‘ All my explanations seemed to find little support since the generals 1 Von Kleist, ‘ Behandlung der Zivilbevölkerung im Operationsgebiet*, February 17, 1943, E A P 9 9 /114 5 *, C R S. 2 Interviews G -2, G -6, G - 1 1 . On the agrarian question, see also below, Chapters X V I - X V I L

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want to go further in a [Great] Russian direction than we are’ in supporting indigenous anti-Soviet trends.1 In practice, the controversy was of little consequence to the Crimean population. By 1943 the lines were drawn, and in all probability not even the most generous policy could have restored confidence in the Germans. The Crimean experience illustrated that, in contrast to the North Caucasus, Army rule did not neces­ sarily assure popular support, even in non-Slavic areas. The change in indigenous sentiment must be attributed overwhelmingly to German occupation policy and performance. Taurida The Crimea had been intended for German civil government; at the July 16 ,19 4 1, conference, where it had been assigned to Koch’s R K U as a General Commissariat, Gauleiter Alfred Frauenfeld was designated its civilian ruler.12 A fanatical Nazi and obsessed bigot, this Austrian enthusiastically busied himself with ‘ research’ on the Gothic origins of Crimean culture. First he was busy compiling a photographic album entitled ‘ From the Homeland of the Crimean Goths’ ; then he set about writing a book on the history of the peninsula. His dream was to build a new capital in the Yaila Mountains and to make the Crimea a genuine spa of the New Europe. Absorbed in his ‘ devotion to the fine arts’ (as he saw them), his outlook combined a measure of lassitude with a limited sympathy for the Tatar segment of the population — and expressed itself in bitter enmity against Erich Koch’s regime to the north. Frauenfeld is the perfect example of the contention that a relative ‘ liberalism’ towards the indigenous population by no means involved a rejection or dilution of Nazism.3 Actually Frauenfeld, after serving as Foreign Office Observer in the north, took over only five districts which the Army relinquished as of September 1, 1942; these formed a temporary commissariat under the name of Taurida, which was to become a part of the future General Commissariat Crimea once the Army agreed to turn the rest over to civilian rule. Curiously enough, all five districts were, strictly speaking, not a part of the Crimea but with Melitopol’ as 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Besichtigungsreise durch die Ukraine’ , June 1943, E A P 99 /431*, C R S , p. 13. 2 Document 2 2 1 -L , T M W C , xxxviii, 92. 3 For Frauenfeld’s outlook, see his ‘ Sowjetunion und T e rm ite n sta a tWille und Macht (Berlin), ix (1941), no. 22, pp. 1-4 ; and his fantastic brochure, Ursache und Sinn unseres Kampfes [Vienna, 1944]. T en years later, in February 1953, he was among the group arrested for plotting a neo-Nazi coup against the Bonn government.

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their capital lay to its north.1 The reason for this transfer of nomi­ nally Ukrainian counties to the Crimea is to be found in the plans of Germanization: if the Crimea was to become a Reichsgau, Berlin reasoned, it needed a hinterland to strengthen its defences on land. As chief of Taurida, Frauenfeld was nominally Erich Koch’s subordinate. Actually they were bitter foes. Taking advantage of Hitler’s and Himmler’s plans to get rid of the Crimean population, Koch instituted a ‘ blockade’ of food moving into Taurida from the north. Frauenfeld co-operated with the military to overcome this measure, but the tension remained. In the winter of 1942-3 Frauen­ feld repeatedly sent Rosenberg memoranda attacking Koch. When Rosenberg visited Frauenfeld in June 1943, Koch refused to come to his house. According to an eye-witness, Koch tried to make the inspection trip ‘ into a sort of inquisition’. Koch considered the situation in Taurida an object lesson of an alternative to his ideas of government and therefore suggested the abolition of Frauenfeld’s rump commissariat and its inclusion in neighbouring Nikolaev Province, which Koch had under his thumb. As one of Frauenfeld’s aides told Koch’s deputy, Paul Dargel, it may have been a mistake to set up Taurida as a separate unit in the first place, but now T would not deem it correct to attach them [the five districts] to a different office. . . . If temporarily assigned to another General Commissariat, [they] would be plundered rather than developed.’ 2 Frauenfeld remained on his job until the retreat late in 1943. Then, the end of his dream at hand, he sent Rosenberg a lengthy memorandum summarizing his own experiences and those of Koch and the Army as he had observed them. It amounted to a narrowly utilitarian vindication of a policy of calculated magnanimity : during the war Germany needed the Easterners, and therefore any promises should be made that would attract their support; after the war, any policy the Reich desired could be pursued, and no one would then be in a position to gainsay it. No one, he insisted, who advocated an ‘ intelligent’ Ostpolitik would for a second shrink back from terror and ruthlessness if German interests commanded them — even if thousands of foreigners had to be killed. But the evidence showed that his own policy obviated much of the brutality that had character­ ized Koch’s reign. In the economic field Taurida had yielded more 1 On the planned organization of the Crimea, see Ostkartei (Berlin), 1943, v, no. 7, pp. 15 -16 ; R K U , Zentralblatt, August 29, 1942, pp. 203-4, and January 9, 1943, PP- 7 ff* ; and Document N O -2546 *. 2 Homeyer, ‘ Aktennotiz’ [March 1943], Document N G -1 2 9 4 * J Kausch, op. cit. ; Rosenberg, Portrait, pp. 305-6 ; interviews G-6, G - 1 1 .

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per acre than the richer Ukraine because, he argued, the agrarian reform had been promoted and the people had been given a stake in the new regime. The requisition of the last cow and the depriva­ tion of cultural opportunities were bound to make bad blood. Finally, the protagonists of the ‘ policy of blind terror’ ‘ publicized it insistently and at every inopportune occasion’. In brief, Koch’s ‘ sledge-hammer’ treatment had been a ‘ model of wrong treatment’ . 1 The discussion was by then academic. Koch could not be deterred, and Frauenfeld was more adept at criticizing others than he had been at making his own domain a model of contented citizenry. The Stillborn Muftiate With the failure of the two-pronged German drive to the Near East early in 1943, German interest in the area waned. Shifting to a defensive position, Berlin stopped catering to the desires -of the Turks.2 The general shattering of illusions was well illustrated by the change o f emphasis in the policy towards the non-Slavic peoples in the East. With the Caucasus abandoned, General Köstring’s appointment as Inspector of Turkic Troops symbolized the shift from occupation policy to concern for organizing ‘ Eastern troops’ on the German side. In the following months, with Leibbrandt forced out, von Mende became in effect the master of the Ostministerium’s nationality policy, embarking on a drive for the recognition of separatist ‘ national committees’ , primarily for the non-Slavic groups — an effort which once more pointed up the shift from political work on ‘ native soil’ to emigre politics.3 The change of interests in the non-Slavs foreshadowed a similar shift with regard to the Slavic nationalities during the next year, when their home soil was likewise abandoned by the retreating German troops. In November 1943 Soviet troops reached the approaches of the Crimea. The following April they broke through at Perekop and K erch ; and early in May 1944 the last German stronghold on the peninsula surrendered. But before the world of Soviet Islam was once again submerged behind the Iron Curtain — and the Crimean Tatars were exposed to exile and liquidation similar to that of their 1 Frauenfeld, ‘ Denkschrift über die Probleme der Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’ , February io, 1944, Document N O -539 4 *. See also Frauenfeld’s post-war comments, ‘ Der braune und der rote Z a r’ , M S #, IfZ . 2 This change of tactics found rational support in the evidence that the Allies would not force Turkey to enter the war on their side. See L . C. Moyzisch, Operation Cicero (New York : Coward-McCann, 1950). As early as Ju ly 5, 1943, however, Foreign Minister Menemencoglu unequivocally disclaimed official interest in Turanic schemes. 3 On Köstring’s and Mende’s activities in these fields, see below, pp. 558 ff.

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North Caucasus neighbours 1 — a minor crisis arose over the religious representation of the Moslem world. In the Caucasus and the Crimea, the German Army authorities, while permitting and at times encouraging the exercise of the Moslem faith, decisively balked on one point: the election of higher religious dignitaries. The reason for this was manifest. In the Crimea particularly, the mufti had traditionally occupied a position of such prestige as to become a political figure; so long as no all-Crimean assembly or ‘ national government’ was permitted, it was consistent to bar the election of a mufti. Yet the potential value of a Germanoriented religious leader was equally obvious to those who, like Mende or Hentig, were concerned with Islamic opinion within and outside the Soviet Union. The argument of this group (as one of its spokesmen later restated it) ran as follows: ‘ The Islamic world is a whole. German action toward the Moslems in the East must be such as not to prejudice Germany’s standing among all Islamic peoples. ’ 12 At the same time, the Crimean nationalists tried to influence the Ostministerium in the same direction, hoping to utilize the mufti for their own ends.3 Finally, a proponent of the muftiate emerged in Amin el-Husseini, the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The purposes of these elements were sharply divergent. The reasons for the Arm y’s stalling on the question of the muftiate were the very ones for which the Crimean nationalists, especially the panTurkists, favoured it. At the same time, the Grand Mufti, who worked closely with German intelligence and propaganda agencies, sought to centralize all Moslem activities in his hands. The panIslamic ideas which he propounded fell, however, on barren so il; other emotions, other symbols proved far stronger than strictly religious ties which would have aligned Volga Tatars with Berbers and Yemenites with Tadzhiks. The Grand Mufti was opposed especially by the pan-Turkist and pan-Turkestani refugees who saw in him a dangerous competitor. On this one issue, however, all three groups saw eye to eye : ‘ pro-Turks’ in the Reich, Crimean nationalists, and the Grand Mufti. In view of the Army’s opposition, however, the proposal lay dormant until October 1943 when the Soviet government, as part of its relaxation in anti-religious activities, and as a counterpart to the re-establishment of the Orthodox patriarchate in Moscow, 1 See Pravda (Moscow), June 26, 1946. 2 Mende, letter to author, November 19, 1953. 3 Their hand was strengthened by the permission granted in Riga to invest a mufti for the area of Ostland.

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created a central muftiate in Tashkent. Now the Crimean section of the Rosenberg Ministry, in close conjunction with Mende, advanced a counter-proposal. In order effectively to counteract Bolshevism which, as recent events demonstrate, now seeks to win greater influence in the Moslem world [the head of the Crimean section, Richard Kornelsen, suggested], it is imperative that we on our part generously marshal all means at our disposal to fight it. The most immediate step is to have the election of the Tashkent mufti declared invalid . . . [and to show] that the mufti of Tashkent is nothing but a puppet in the hands of Moscow. The most effective form of such a counter-move, he proposed, would be a congress of Moslem dignitaries representing the Crimea, the Caucasus, Turkestan, and the Volga Tatars. It was recom­ mended ‘ at this congress to give solemn German recognition to a Crimean Tatar mufti, who would be selected in advance’.1 This move, to be successful, required enlisting the support of the SS through its representative in the Ostministerium, Gottlob Berger. Since the SS had given strong backing to Amin el-Husseini, the suggestion was made to ‘ ask the Grand Mufti to be a guest of honour ’. Berger endorsed the memorandum, stressing the ‘ extensive ’ role to be assigned to the Grand Mufti.2 With the enthusiastic support of the Crimean Tatar refugees attached to Kornelsen’s office, the project of a Crimean muftiate was submitted to the Army : the election would assure ‘ the presence of a trustworthy personality through whom the Tatar population could be influenced’ . Furthermore, ‘ the election of a mufti would be of greatest political and propaganda significance in its effects both within the Soviet Union and in the Near East . . .’ All possible objections were brushed aside with mysterious references to the ‘ wish of the Führer to make concessions [entgegenzukommen] to the Moslem peoples’ . The actual election was to be a sham cere­ mony : Kornelsen had already picked özenbashly as the candidate.3 1 Kornelsen, memorandum, November n , 1943, Document N O - 3 1 12 * . 2 Ibid. On S S relations with the Grand Mufti, see also Document N G -3 7 6 8 * , and Veli Kayum, interrogation, IM T , February 27, 19 47*, N A . 3 Kornelsen to von Dreysling, December 1943, Document N O - 3 1 13 * . The reference to Hitler’s pro-Moslem stand presumably was to his statement of December 1942 (see p. 2 5 1 above). Hitler, who like the S S laboured under the misconception that the Grand Mufti was something of a ‘ Moslem Pope’, once jokingly remarked to Bormann : I ’m going to become a religious figure. Soon I ’ll be" the great chief of the Tatars. Already Arabs and Moroccans are mingling my name with their prayers. Amongst the Tatars I shall become khan. The only thing I shall be incapable of is to share the sheiks’ mutton with them. I ’m a vegetarian. . . . (H T T , pp. 203-4.)

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The mention of Özenbashly only strengthened the Arm y’s suspicions that the new office would be little more than a cloak for political activities : in effect he was already holding the reins of the Moslem committees in the Crimea. On the spot there was little sympathy for niceties of psychological warfare experiments addressed to a minority group, in which some elements in Berlin were belatedly taking an interest. The Crimea was already a beleaguered bastion, and the Army could not be bothered with a plan that was likely to arouse further tensions. The creation of a regional government on a Moslem basis [it replied] and the formation of a grand muftiate of the Crimea are not con­ templated. Nor are there any plans in this direction. They would constitute a break with the policy heretofore pursued and are out of the question. . . . Indicative of the change of popular temper in the Crimea was another reason advanced in the reply : ‘ Of late, the Tatars have proved extremely unreliable’. 1 This verdict spelled the end of the project. The Rosenberg office could not enforce its will, and a few months later the peninsula was back in Soviet hands. However, the question of the muftiate was to be raised in Berlin once more. By then strictly an emigre affair, with possible effect only on the few Moslems under German control and of very slight propaganda value, it was resuscitated in the frantic search for new solutions after the military setbacks in the summer of 1944. In order to strengthen the indoctrination of Moslem troops on the German side, Mende and the Grand Mufti agreed on the continued advisability of ‘ experimentally’ creating a muftiate. To a question whether the Grand Mufti would have any objection to the Crimean Tatar candidate, özenbashly [Mende reported], the Grand Mufti replied that he considered him thoroughly suitable [probably something of an overstatement]. . . . Herr özenbashly has already been asked by telephone to come here.12 Özenbashly, however, never came. He had hurriedly left the Crimea before the Soviet troops arrived. Together with some of the Tatar units who had fought with the Germans, he went to Rumania. He was disgusted with the Germans and, hoping that the British would land in Rumania, he refused to go to the Reich. He remained in Bucharest until the Red Army arrived, when he was arrested by a 1 O KH /GenStdH /O .Q u. to RM fdbO ., February 28, 1944, Document N O 3 ii4 #.

2 Mende, ‘ Gespräch mit dem Grossmufti von Jerusalem’ , Ju ly 27, 1944*.

G.R.R.---T

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group of Soviet officers and men who reportedly came in British uniforms to fetch him.1 The struggle over the Crimean muftiate illustrated the constel­ lation of contending forces in the Reich. Given the orientation of the Rosenberg group and, for once, implicit backing from the Führer, here was an opportunity for psychological warfare which Berlin at first scorned, then tried belatedly, but never carried out. At no time was there evidence of genuine sympathy for Moslem beliefs. The effects of the campaign would, moreover, surely have been secondary or nil. Curious in this instance was the combination of factions opposing i t : some of the Nazi stalwarts, including the SS, sought to delay it because of their Germanization plans; men of the BormannKoch orientation saw in it an unwarranted surrender to the natives ; while a large part of the military and some of the diplomats opposed what they deemed scatter-brained experimentation with the granting of fantastic and unreal titles to potentially hostile groups at the price of antagonizing the Russians. I del-Ural and Turkestan Most of the Moslem areas of the Soviet Union never fell into German hands. Remote from the Reich both in time and space, their future disposition was discussed in Berlin in a far vaguer and more casual fashion than was the fate of the Caucasus and the Crimea. The initial outlook on the Soviet ‘ Asiatics’ was decisively influenced by the insistent Untermensch campaign which sought to inculcate in the German soldier and civilian the conviction that the Russians were degenerate because they had been heavily permeated with Tatar and Mongol blood. If the Russian was a sub-human, a fortiori the Tatar and Mongol himself was one, too. The sequences of pictures of Soviet prisoners with ‘ Mongol ’ features ; the prompt liquidation of all ‘ Asiatic’ civilians apprehended in the occupied areas; and frequent articles in the German press stressing the ‘ Mongol bestiality’ of the Russians — all created an unmistakable climate of opinion in which the Reich was portrayed as the Western defender against the ‘ Asiatic menace’.2 Indeed, Hitler himself ••

1 Interview H -106. See also the appeal by Ozenbashly and Kirimal to the Germans to evacuate Crimean troops and specialists with their families, German Military Attach^ Bucharest to Foreign Office, April 17, 1944, Document N G -4 2 4 3 *. 2 See, for instance, Karl-Heinz Rüdiger, ‘ Uber den Lebensstil Osteuropas’, Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), December 1941, pp. 10 13 -14 . Public expression of anti-Asiatic sentiments was slightly tempered because of concern over Japanese reactions.

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viewed the future German settlement in Russia as a form of break­ water against the Oriental tide.1 In his pre-invasion planning Rosenberg had made no qualitative distinction between Great Russians and the Tatar-Bashkir complex between Volga and Urals. According to Nazi classifications, some of the Volga Tatars — in the broadest sense — were Finnic, others Tatar, still others Mongoloid. There was indeed no simple unifying element among Bashkirs and Chuvash, Mordva and Mari, Udmurts and Kazan’ Tatars. Initially, no cognizance was taken in Berlin of the synthetic concept propagated by some of the separatist emigres from this area under the name of Idel-Ural.12 Since the Reichs­ kommissariat Moskau was to extend to the Urals, the non-Slavic part of north-eastern Russia was to be included within it, divided into administrative units conforming with ethnic boundaries, roughly following the Soviet borders of Tataria (the Kazan’-Kuibyshev area), Chuvashia, Udmurtia, Mordva, Mari, and Bashkiria. No attempt was made either to separate non-Slavs from Slavs or to group the Volga Tatars and Volga Finns in one political-administrative entity.3 This plan soon succumbed to the reappraisal of tactics which the Rosenberg Ministry and, within limits, German military circles undertook after their hopes for single-handed and lightning victory had been shattered. By early 1942 a new trend became evident, aimed at salvaging the ‘ Idel-Ural peoples’ (the Ostministerium now became prone to adopt this nomenclature) from the ‘ compost heap’ of Untermenschen. One reason for this change was that the Germans had a substantial number of Volga Tatar prisoners of war, whom some Army officers wished to form into fighting units. Secondly, the Germans had become interested in defection propa­ ganda aimed at Tatar and Bashkir soldiers in the Red Army. Finally, the Rosenberg faction extended its concept of a cordon sanitaire 1 He spoke of a ‘ giant wall which protects the New East against the CentralAsian masses* and on another occasion of the need of a ‘ living wall* against sudden waves ‘ foaming down from Asia', that ‘ disquieting reservoir of m en’ . (Picker, op. cit. p. 45, and H T T , p. 40.) 2 Idel is the Tatar name for the Volga. For the background, see Bertold Spuler, Idel-Ural (Berlin : Bücherei des Ostraumes, 1942) and ‘ Die Wolga-Tataren und Baschkiren unter russischer Herrschaft*, Islam (Berlin), xxix (1949), 14 2 -2 16 ; Richard E. Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1954). Having to contend with considerable dissension in their own midst, the various proposed partners of the Idel-Ural state had to use Russian as the only common language they knew. Some German observers even suggested that the Soviets had effectively ‘ proletarianized * the Volga Tatars and Volga Finns out of distinct ethnic existence. ( Volk und Reich, July 19 41, p. 460.) 3 Dienststelle Rosenberg, ‘ Die neuen Ostgebiete*, June 16, 19 4 1, Document io 33-P S *See also Documents I0 3 5 -P S * and io 3 6 -P S #, June 18 and 25, 19 41.

2 72

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around Muscovy to complete the encirclement from the east by including the ‘ Idel-Ural’ nationalities. The result was an awkward effort to discard the application of the Untermensch stigma to the Tatars. But how was one to convince the population at home that the Tatars, who appeared more ‘ Asiatic’ and alien to them, were really friends and allies, whereas the forced labourers brought in from Smolensk or Rostov, many of them tall, blond, and blue-eyed, were sub-humans? Though largely in­ effectual and ambiguous, virtually all public German references to the Tatars in 1942-3 concerned themselves with this back-handed ‘ rehabilitation’ . It took its cue from Hitler’s mention of the Tatars among the Eastern nationalities who ‘ participate^] in the struggle against the Bolshevik world foe’. 1 In August the Propaganda Ministry instructed the press not to engage in polemics against Tatars and Turkestanis.2 The Army followed suit with an order to consider Turkic and Tatar soldiers fighting on the German side as ‘ comrades and helpers’ whose national peculiarities ‘ must be met with understanding and tact’.3 Perhaps the most authoritative appeal came in the generally serious Zeitschrift fü r Politik, where von Hentig, the Near Eastern expert of the Foreign Office, argued that the term ‘ Tatar’ was in no sense derogatory, and concluded by implicitly calling for a GermanTatar rapprochement.4 At a time when Schulenburg was preparing his Adlon conference, von Hentig’s article amounted to an overture to the ‘ Idel-U ral’ spokesmen among the refugees in Turkey. The emigre dream thus thrived in an atmosphere of German-Turkish accommodation.5 1 V B -B , April 27, 1942. (Berlin), item no. 7434 (August 2 1, 1942). In view of the continued uncertainty, it was reiterated half a year later that ‘ we would be latterday victims of old tsarist agitation, were we to say unfriendly things about the Tatars, who have never done us Germans any harm. . . .* (Ibid, item no. 8577 [March 26, 1943].) 3 Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Ukraine, ‘ Anordnung Nr. n o ’ , December 12, 1942, R K U >Zentralblatt> 1943, no. 7, pp. 92-3. 4 W . O. von Hentig, ‘ Turan-Tatarei*, Zeitschrift für Politik, March 1942, pp. 185-8. The situation remained none the less contradictory. The Rosenberg Ministry insisted that ‘ the Slavic peoples are in no case to be designated as belonging to the Asiatic race or family of peoples. . . .* A t the same time it decreed that the term ‘ Tatar* was a ‘ collective Muscovite term of derogation for the Volga, Crimean, and Azerbaijani Turks*, which must be ‘ avoided and replaced*; and the Nazi Party argued that since there was nothing derogatory to the term ‘ Tatar*, ‘ there are no objections to the retention of the expression*. (RM fdbO ., Richtlinien für die Pressezensur [Berlin, ist ed., January 1943], pp. 9, 30 ; N S D A P , Verfügungeny Anordnungen, Bekanntgaben [Munich, 1943], i, 74.)

2 Zeitschriftendienst

5 The ‘ Idel-Ural* group was led by Hayas Iskhaki, an old Socialist-Revolu­ tionary who had worked closely with the Prometheus movement and had at times enjoyed support from various anti-Soviet powers.

oh.

x in

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The T del-U ral’ concept suited those who were striving for a partition of the Soviet Union — and that is why it was embraced by the Ostministerium, though it was fully aware of the artificiality of the notion. The same concept, however, was also the mainstay of another group : those striving for a pan-Turanic bloc or union. Only on the ruins of a disintegrated Russian state could the Tatars and Bashkirs hope to erect a new sovereign unit that would allow them to weld together, synthetically and against powerful odds, the peoples between Volga and Urals. Highly impracticable and un­ natural, the ‘ Idel-U ral’ project led some of its proponents, precisely because of the heterogeneous ethnic and cultural base of its putative population and because of its isolation from all seas and the outside world, to advocate a super-state combination with other Turanic peoples. Their eyes were drawn particularly to Central Asia, and the dream of a state ‘ from Kazan’ to Samarkand’ fired the imagination of the most hardy and visionary of ‘ Idel-Ural’ politicians abroad. The pan-Turanic gambit was bound to run counter to the other existing schemes. The Turkic nationalists fought this search for ‘ safety in greater numbers’. The anti-separatists quite naturally opposed it. The initial German attitude towards such an Asian bloc — which in pre-war days Japan had at times encouraged — was of necessity hostile. The Mende group frowned on it, preferring to promote a ‘ Little Idel-Ural’ — admittedly fantastic but perhaps less so than the pan-Turanic scheme, which, moreover, was deemed potentially hostile to the Reich. In Berlin blasts for Turanic unity were fired only intermittently. Hentig was one such exception who recalled the romantic search for cultural and linguistic unity which the Turanists pursued. ‘ Over there, in Russia,’ he wrote, ‘ they were seeking the old Turan. Shall it be realized now?’ Thanks to our advance in Russia, the situation has fundamentally changed: a new movement presses for expression, seeks a name. The Turkic tribes from the Volga eastwards, which we are dealing with, from the Urals to Mongolia, all once belonged to the ulus of Chagatai [the son of Genghis Khan]. . . . Hentig therefore suggested the name, ‘ Chagataism’, for the TatarTurkic unity movement and in his pronouncements implied German support.1 Actually the fate of the Volga Tatars and Volga Finns never became a practical concern of the Reich. With the armies stalled far from these lands, the pan-Turanic movement — just as the panIslam and pan-Slavic — was out of favour in Berlin. Only at the Hentig, op. cit. pp. 187-88.

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end of the war, when every means, however extravagant and unlikely, had to be marshalled to stave off German defeat, did some elements in the Reich come to pose as pan-Turanic advocates.1 Nor was there any need for urgent decisions on the future of Soviet Central Asia. The Ostministerium as well as the Army worked with emigres who advocated an independent and united Turkestan, composed of all five Soviet Central Asian republics.123 Their work was limited largely to propaganda and intelligence. In practice, this fact, and German desire not to arouse Japanese suspicions by advancing claims to Central Asia, permitted the advocates of a United Turkestan to operate with relatively greater ease than other separatist groups. Turkestan was beyond the projected area of German occupation. Rosenberg’s plans naturally called for the separation of Turkestan from Russia. His earliest drafts singled out Central Asia for its hostility to Communism and generally to ‘ things Russian’. He assumed that ‘ after the military collapse of the Soviets in Europe, it would be possible with very small forces to eliminate forced Muscovite dominion in Central Asia as w ell’. While stressing the political (anti-Russian) and economic (cotton) benefits of such a development, Rosenberg, interestingly enough, also pointed to the anti-British potentialities: One wonders whether these states [Iran and Afghanistan] could not thereby be brought to a more active advance against India, if such a course is at all desired. . . . The threat to British lines of communication to India thereby assumes real significance and will unquestionably force Britain to a greater deployment of forces [in Central Asia] which it will have to withdraw from Europe or another area. ' Nowhere further was the fate of Turkestan authoritatively discussed.4 The subsequent blueprints of future government in the East stopped short of the borders of Central Asia. Only by implication was it clear that Turkestan, allied with and dependent on the Reich, would constitute a final link in the chain of states around Muscovy. The German Army, on its part, made no specific plans of conquest 1 See below, p. 601. 2 I.e. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizia, Turkmenia, and Tadzhikistan. Other refugee factions from Soviet Central Asia found little or no support in Berlin. See also Sir Olaf Caroe, Soviet Empire : The Turks of Central Asia and Stalinism (New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1953), an erudite but hardly balanced presentation. 3 Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 552-3. 4 A volume on Turkestan did, however, appear in the Leibbrandt series of brief handbooks on the Soviet Union (Johannes Benzing, Turkestan [Berlin : Bücherei des Ostraumes, 1943]).

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for the area. The whole question was restricted to the realm of refugee activities — the struggle over a national legion and a ‘ United National Turkestan Committee’ . The Turkestani nationalists occupied a stronger position in this contest than did their colleagues precisely because Germany’s selfish interest in this area was smallest and because their leader, Veli Kay um, was a major protege of the Mende office.1 Though beset by difficulties within his own Turkestani circles, Kayum remained in the good graces of the Ostministerium to the end. Unknown in his own country, he remained an isolated emigre politician. Soviet Central Asia knew neither him nor the Germans. On the public record, meanwhile, Berlin preferred to remain non-committal. ‘ Whether the tribes of these regions . . . i.e. Tatars and Turkestanis, will live as one people in one state organism [Staatswesen] or as two separate peoples, the future will tell. Either form may evolve from the present position of the Turkic groups.’ 1 The only definite point was that both groups were to be separated from Russia. 1 T he Turkestanis had a prominent leader in Mustaffa Chokai (Chokaev), who died in December 1941 after a few months of half-hearted collaboration with the Germans. The German-reared Veli Kayum succeeded him. While Chokai had at one time been 'leftist* and French-oriented, Kayum was consistently close to the Nazis, repeatedly expressing his ‘ faith in Germany* as well as labelling the ‘ imperialist, democratic, and liberal states* enemies of Turkestan. (See, for instance, his speech, January 24, 1943, M illij Turkistan [Berlin], no. 15, p. 9.) On Chokai, see also Yash Turkestan : pamiati Mustafa Chokai-Beia (Paris, 1949), and Tiirkeli (Munich), 19 5 1, no. 4, pp. 17-26. 2 Benzing, ‘ Die Turkvölker der Sowjetunion* [lecture at the Prussian Academy of Sciences], Der Orient in deutscher Forschung, H. H. Schaeder, ed. (Leipzig : Harrassowitz, 1944), p. 26.

C H A P T E R XI V

M A S T E R S AND S E R F S Nach Ostland wollen wir reiten, Nach Ostland wollen wir weit, Über die grüne Heiden, Da ist eine bessere Zeit. Old German song

Lebensraum A l l through the war-time disputes and the changing fortunes on the battlefield, the overriding German purpose remained immutable : not merely to overthrow the Soviet state but to make the East, with its resources and manpower, the servant of the German Herrenvolk. The grand design called not only for a change of borders, but also for a drastic reshuffling of the hierarchy of ethnic groups in the East, as a result of which the Germans would emerge as masters; Jews and other ‘ undesirables’ would be liquidated; and the Great Russians would be reduced to the lowest stratum of the new order.1 If, as has been shown, the future position of the intermediate elements — the non-Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union — was much disputed, that of the top and bottom strata — Germans and Great Russians — was a constant in German plans. It was axiomatic that the German people was to inherit the earth. The Drang nach Osten was at last to give them an opportunity to settle and live on the long-coveted expanses. This gigantic scheme involved the annexation of some regions (notably the Baltic States and the Crimea) and the colonization of others (the bulk of the European U .S .S .R .); only certain parts of the Soviet Union (such as the Caucasus and Russia-in-Asia) would not be subject to Germanization. In the regions to be annexed or colonized, the process was to involve several operations: (i ) the liquidation of those elements which, in the topsy-turvy scale of Nazi values, were proscribed as unworthy to survive; (2) the mass transfer of other ‘ inferior’ elements eastwards; (3) the gradual assimilation of the ‘ better’ non-German elements who would be permitted to remain; and (4) the settlement with German farmer and soldier immigrants of the spaces thus vacated. The plan was an old one. In less virulent form, it had existed 1 See chart, p. 276. 276

i2.

SCHEMATIC PLAN OF FUTURE ETHNIC HIERARCHY IN THE EAST

EZZ3

to be exterminated

En* mnD

to be transferred eastward

I

X

X

X

to be ‘Germanized’

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even prior to the first World War, and not only Ludendorff but even Seeckt had endorsed its principal features — minus the programme of extermination, which Hitler and his aides had added. As early as 1932, a leading Nazi had developed the plan in Hitler’s presence. Picturing the future reorganization of the East, he concluded : All this, however, would remain an idle dream unless a planned policy of colonization and depopulation were carried out. Yes, a depopulation policy. . . . It [will be] necessary to bring agricultural lands predomin­ antly into the hands of the German Herren class.1 The formula remained sharply etched in Hitler’s mind : move the Slavs eastwards, and move Germans in to take their place. The real frontier between Europe and Asia, he liked to say, was not geo­ graphical but ‘ the one that separates the Germanic world from the Slav world. It’s our duty to place it where we want it to be.’ I would deem it a crime [Hitler told his associates] if I had sacrificed the blood . . . of a quarter million dead and a hundred thousand dis­ abled . . . merely for the conquest of natural riches to be exploited in capitalist style. . . . The goal of Ostpolitik is in the long run, to open up an area of settlement for a hundred million Germans in this territory. Characteristic of his Germanic ethnocentrism, this argument provided an easy and potent raison d'etre for the entire war, whose untold casualties would be more than compensated for by the increased birth-rate in the new Eastern settlements. Though there were tremendous difficulties involved in such a mass movement, ‘ the whole is a problem of state power, a question of might’ . Ethics were not involved : ‘ I f anyone asks us where we obtain the right to extend Germanic space to the East, we reply that . . . it’s success that justifies everything’ .12 In pre-invasion days, the outlines of the plan were still hazy. Rosenberg did not distinguish clearly between areas to be annexed forthwith and those to be colonized : the entire transfer of millions of men to the East was to be carried out in such a manner that ‘ in the course of one or two generations we could annex this area as newly Germanized land to the German heartland [Kerngebiet]’.3 In October 1941 he was still uncertain about the fate of certain areas. Was the hinterland of the RKO between Lakes Ilmen and Peipus to 1 Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction (New York : Putman, 1940), p. 33. See also above, Chapter I. 2 H T T , pp. 37-8, 26 1, 469 ; Harry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), PP- 52, 73 - 4 » 3° 3 > 3233 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 1 April 2, 1941, Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 550.

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be reserved for ‘ inconvenient elements or shall this whole territory be opened up for Germanic settlement?’ he wondered, finally deciding on the latter.1 Likewise, the rate of resettlement was still vague. At one time, Hitler spoke arbitrarily of moving ten million Germans in ten years, at another time of twenty million; what was clear was that within his lifetime the work was to be well on its way, if not accomplished. ‘ Our colonizing penetration’, he insisted, ‘ must be constantly progressive, until it reaches the stage where our own colonists far outnumber the local inhabitants.’ 12 At any rate, ‘ in twenty years’ time, European emigration will no longer be directed towards America, but eastwards ’.3 In his vague estimates and forecasts Hitler lumped together the entire East — Poland and the ‘ annexed’ as well as the ‘ occupied’ areas. Borders would vanish while forced migration plus liberal use of firearms and gas vans combined to ‘ solve’ Europe’s ills. There was a crucial difference between the ‘ old’ and the ‘ new’ Germanization programme. Nazi Germany wanted no part of the traditional Kulturträgertum which had prided itself on spreading its advanced civilization to inferior nations. The new plan was organically distinct, for, as Himmler declared, Our duty in the East is not Germanization in the former sense of the term, that is, imposing German language and laws upon the population, but to ensure that only people of pure German blood inhabit the East.4 It was no accident that Himmler took such a determined stand. While Hitler issued broad directives setting the limits and pace of the colonization programme, it was the SS that was called upon to fulfil the fantastic vision. Himmler’s empire included a Main Office for Race and Settlement Questions (RuSHA), a Commissariat for the Strengthening of Germanism (RKFD V ), and other agencies responsible for migration and settlement, particularly of ethnic Germans.5 The programme for the East was bound to attract men whose power it would immeasurably enhance. The S S as the German elite was to provide the ‘ racially high-grade’ manpower which would move into the East as a fresh and superior stock.6 1 RM fdbO., 4Niederschrift über die Chefbesprechung am 3 0 .10 .19 4 1 ’, November 15, 19 41, Document 15 3 9 -P S *. 2 H T T , p. 426. 3 Ibid. p. 42 (entry for September 25, 1941). See also Herbert Backe, ‘ E r­ weiterter Nahrungsspielraum’ , V B -M , January 1, 1942. 4 Das Schwarze Korps (Berlin), August 20, 1942. 5 See the R u S H A trial, U .S. v. Greifelt et al.y N M T , v. 6 See, for instance, Picker, op. cit. p. 308.

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The prospect had such an uncanny grip on the Nazi leaders that as late as October 1943, with the German armies in headlong retreat, Himmler could still assert: For us the end of the war will mean an open road to the East. . . . We shall move the limits of German settlement eastwards by 500 kilo­ metres . . . into an area militarily secured for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.1

The Crimea and parts of Ostland were to become Reichsland — not colonial dependencies but integral parts of the German state.2 With Hitler’s approval, far-flung schemes for the migration of ethnic Germans from other parts of the globe were worked out. In practice, none of them was carried out. Unlike the Crimea, whose indigenous population was not con­ sidered suitable for Germanization, Ostland presented a difficult problem in that several demographic transformations were required. As Rosenberg put it in his first directive to Lohse, the Reich Com­ missariat must become ‘ a part of the Greater German Reich by means of [1] Germanization of the racially suitable elements, [2] colonization by Germanic peoples, and [3] exiling undesirable elements’.3 These three objectives remained unchanged throughout the war. In his basic directives on resettlement, Himmler reiterated that the first post-war five-year plan of settlement would ‘ provide at least a German ruling layer in the Crimea and the Baltikum’ .4 The future transfer of recalcitrant and otherwise inferior elements into the hinterland — Belorussia or Muscovy — was taken for granted. And the return of Baltic Germans, who had been uprooted and brought to the Reich in 1939*4.0, was actually begun.5 The first area singled out for priority in German settlement — paradoxically, the one closest to the front lines — was Estonia : here Germanic elements were assumed to be strongest.6 Actually, before the programme could be implemented, the country was under Soviet attack. Ingria was the only area directly affected. 1 Himmler, Sicherheitsfragen, October 14, 1943 ([Berlin :] O K W , N S-Führungsstab, 1944), reprinted as Document 070-L, T M W C , xxxvii, 523. 2 See above, pp. 5 1 -2 ; and Documents N O -270 3 * and N G - 1 1 1 8 * . 3 Rosenberg, ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar im Ostland*, M ay 8, 19 41, Document 1029-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 574. See also Rauschning, op. cit. p. 38. 4 Himmler, speech, March 1 3 -14 , 1942, summary, Document 910 -P S, T M W C , xxvi, 410 . 5 Interviews G -9, G -3 1 . 6 Conference at FH Q , ‘ Aktennotiz*, August 17, 1942, Document N O -270 3*. The Estonian population was well aware of such plans (Ants Oras, Baltic Eclipse [London : Gollancz, 1948], p. 234).

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Ingria, or Ingermanland, was the name of the area between Lakes Peipus and Onega, an area which had once been inhabited by the Finnic Ingrians but had since lost all ethnic and cultural identity.1 Now the concept of ‘ Ingria’ was revived. According to Hitler’s wishes, ‘ the Crimea and Ingria [were] to be colonized first’ , and the first comprehensive settlement plan in mid-1942 singled out, in addition to the Crimea, ‘ Ingria, Petersburg District’.2 Some saw in it an effort to justify the extension of Estonia and perhaps Latvia to the vicinity of Leningrad.3 Finally, in view of the impasse over the disposition of the city of Leningrad, the idea emerged in mid1942 to make the area a separate Hauptbezirk, not to be placed under the Ostland administration but directly subordinate to Berlin. Since both the Rosenberg Ministry and the SS wanted it to go neither to the future Reich Commissariat Muscovy, nor to Ostland, nor to Finland, the idea of such an enclave promised to resolve the deadlock and also provide an area for immediate settlement.4 It did not take the German press long to start argu­ ing the ‘ Germanic’ character of Ingria to justify resettlement plans.5 In preparation for the future transfer, it was decided to remove the Ingrians. Early in 1942, the Finnish government was told that it could have the Ingrians ‘ back’, but except for the movement of individual volunteers, nothing was done until 1943. After an exchange of communications, a Finnish-German inspection com­ mission visited the area, and on October 6, 1943, a ‘ repatriation’ agreement (a blatant misnomer) was signed in Riga, later confirmed by diplomatic exchange.6 As a result, by the spring of 1944 some 1 Meyer-Hetling, report, February 19, 1942, Document N G - 1 1 1 8 * ; [MeyerHetling,] Generalplan Ost : Rechtliche, wirtschaftliche und räumliche Grundlagen des Ostaufhaus (Berlin, 1942) ; abstract, Document N O -2 2 5 5 *. 2 For a German war-time account, see Walter Liebing, ‘ Ingermanland und Ingermanländer', Deutsche Arbeit (Berlin), xliii (1943), 274-8 ; and Heinrich Laakmann, Ingermanland und die ingermanländischen Finnen (Berlin : Publi­ kationsstelle Ost, 1942). 3 ‘ The two northernmost districts, Estonia and Liviand, shall extend far to the east, until short of Leningrad, so as to make room for possible resettlements.* (Dienststelle Rosenberg, ‘ Allgemeine Richtlinien für die politische und wirt­ schaftliche Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete', June 25, 19 4 1, Document 10 37P S *. Actually, two small pieces of Russian territory — at Narva and Pechory — were attached to the Estonian Generalkommissariat. 4 Peter Kleist, memorandum, M ay 1, 19 4 2 * ; and RM fdbO., I4, ‘ Errichtung eines reichsunmittelbaren Hauptbezirks Leningrad', January 13, 1943, E A P 99/56*, C R S . 5 See Ostland (Riga), i, no. 11 (M ay 1943), and Document N O -32 2 2 *. 6 Interviews G -9, G -16 , G - 3 1 . The pertinent diplomatic exchange does not yet appear to have been published. See also Franz Pasendorfer, ‘ Heimkehr nach Suom i', V B -B , June 2 1, 1943. In addition, several thousand Estonians of Swedish origin were allowed to migrate to Sweden. (Oras, op. cit. p. 268.)

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65,000 men and women had been moved out.1 An incongruous operation, it ‘ solved’ a non-existent minority problem and created a new one in Finland. As for German plans for colonizing Ingria, they remained on paper. Generalplan Ost Responsibility for drafting detailed plans for the colonization programme lay with the S S ’s Planning Office of the ‘ Reich Com­ missar for the Strengthening of Germanism’, directed by Professor Konrad Meyer-Hetling. His staff evolved an over-all plan, which was submitted to Himmler in completed form in May 1942 under the name of Generalplan Ost. In addition to Germans temporarily stationed in the East and residing at central ‘ strong-points’, permanent settlers were to be moved in to form a network of Marken, or frontier marches.2 During the period of settlement, these marches were to be separated from the civil administration and placed as enclaves under the jurisdiction of the SS. Ambitious though it was, the Generalplan was less drastic than some of Hitler’s and Himmler’s pronouncements would have led one to expect. Since during the first phase the bulk of settlers would migrate to areas directly annexed by the Reich, the ‘ settlement marches ’ would have a total of only 3 •5 million Germans at the end of the first 25 years.3 Those natives who ‘ could not be considered [eligible] for Germanization ’ were to be moved eastwards — if need be, by force.4 Some, it was ‘ realistically’ assumed, would have to be left behind, to perform menial tasks for the new German masters. At any rate, the local population would own no land and no capital. Gradually the marches would become the dominant form of organization. In the meanwhile, through the period of migration, two other types of German settlement would exist. On the one hand, there would be ‘ strong-points’ peopled by Germans and serving administrative, economic, and military purposes. In Hitler’s view, ‘ the Germans — this is essential — will have to constitute amongst themselves a closed society, like a fortress’. 1 N ya Dagligt Allehanda, M ay io, 1944, and Finland radio, December 5, 1944, cited in Eugene Kulischer, Europe on the Move (New York : Columbia University Press, 1948), p. 267. 2 Reminiscent of the term Ostmark for Austria, and Mark Brandenburg. The earliest reference to this programme occurs in November 19 41. 3 Generalplan Ost, op. cit.f and Greifelt to Himmler, June 2, 1942, Document N O -2 2 5 5 * ; Meyer-Hetling, affidavit, Document N O -4 72 6 * ; Meyer-Hetling, report, February 19, 1942, Document N G - 1 1 1 8 * ; Meyer-Hetling, testimony, Case V I I I (U .S. v. Greifelt et al.)> Engl, transcript, pp. 22 31-8 . 4 Wetzel to Bräutigam, February 7, 1942, Document N O -25 8 5*.

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A system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country [he declared]. All Germans living in the eastern territories must remain in personal contact with these strong-points.1 They would have at hand mobile forces sufficient to quell any resistance by the remnants of the indigenous elements. At the same time the very process of agrarian settlement was also to serve military purposes. Rather than maintain strong armies in the East, Hitler foresaw the creation of a peculiar military frontier, in which German ‘ soldier-peasants’ would serve as both pioneer-farmers and fighters capable of stemming any onslaught from the East. A rash of research papers appeared, surveying past experiences with military frontiers ranging from Cossack to Austro-Hungarian settlements. Since Hitler foresaw no ‘ formal, juridical end to the war’ but merely a displacement of Russian forces into ‘ Asia’, it was permissible to say in print that ‘ in one form or another, an open military frontier will [have to be maintained] for a long time’ .2 Himmler blithely pre­ dicted that ‘ we will have a perpetual eastern military frontier which, for ever mobile, will always keep us young. . . .’ 3 The new privileged settlers were to include the veterans of the second World War. Erich Koch was among those who sub­ scribed to the thesis that ‘ the German soldier has conquered the Ukraine . . . to provide the descendants of German front-line soldiers with a chance of settling there. . . .’ 4 The basic cadres of the future, veterans or not, were to be farmers, and once again the SS offered to supply the men who could best combine ‘ racial’ qualifications with farming experience and fighting skills. The prospect of German farms in the fertile Eastern plains delighted many an SS officer. The Ukraine is really a blessed country [ran a typical letter]. . . . One wishes again to be twenty years old and to work as a pioneer farmer ! What wonderful tasks await our young generation ! And after inspecting the first SS estates in occupied Russia, the head of the SS Race and Settlement Office, Otto Hofmann, wrote : ‘ More than ever I am convinced that the East belongs to the S S ’.5 1 H T T , pp. 34, 426 ; Picker, op, cit. pp. 73-4. See also Document N O - i 878 # . 2 H T T , pp. 16, 92 ; General Muff, ‘ Militärgrenzen*, Militärwissenschaftliche RnndschaUy viii (1943), 1 29-49 ; Rupert von Schumacher, ‘ Die Erforschung der Militärgrenze als Aufgabe der Wissenschaft*, Deutsche Arbeit, xlii (1942), 264-9. 3 Document 070-L, T M W C , xxxvii, 523. 4 Hans-Joachim Kausch, ‘ Bericht über die Reise*, June 26, 19 43*, Document Occ E 4 - 1 1 * , Y IV O . 5 Hofmann to Hans Raeder [November 1942], Document N O -4 H 3 * ; Dr. Fritz Mennecke, letter, M ay 1943, Document N O -899*. Future settlement plans weighed heavily in the arguments against dissolving the Soviet collective farms (see p. 323).

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Indeed, the SS wasted no time in beginning its appropriation of agricultural estates. The Race and Settlement Office and the SS Economic Office (WiVHA), vying with each other for influence, both tried to extend a hold over them. In July 1942, Oswald Pohl, the notorious chief of concentration camps, was put in charge of administering the SS farms in Russia, the Ukraine, and Belorussia; and before the end of the year Hofmann reported that the RuSHA ‘ manages a total of about 600,000 hectares in the area from the Ukraine to the Baltic Sea’. After an inspection trip he commented that these farms, in addition to supplying food to the troops, ‘ at the same time . . . have another purpose, namely to acclimatize wounded men to the East. . . . We have made a significant approach to the settlement question.’ 1 Not surprisingly, the SS rampage provoked resentment — both among the local inhabitants, who saw their land taken from them, and among other German agencies, who sought to further their own interests. Late in 1943 Himmler was constrained to issue a circular acknowledging that some subordinates had lost all ‘ sense of measure ’ in appropriating property in the East. Henceforth no one was to take possession of estates of more than 400 acres without his personal permission.12

It was ironical that, overpopulated as its leaders claimed it to be, Germany had no one available for migration to the new Lebensraum. The first cadres to be moved, it was ingeniously decided, were to be the ethnic Germans already uprooted or living in areas where their removal would assuage political tensions. Germans from the Banat, Transnistria, and Bessarabia were among these. In addition, the Germanic neighbours of the Reich were permitted to take a hand in the future colonization. Such a policy was in line with the premise which considered them racially worthy of amalgamation into one Germanic mass under German leadership; it was also good politics at the time when Hitler sought to depict the Eastern campaign as a common crusade of the New Europe. As a matter of fact, months before the invasion, Rosenberg suggested the possibility of settling not only Danes, Norwegians, and Dutch in the East but ‘ after a victorious conclusion of the war, also Englishmen’.3 1 Himmler, decree, March 20, 1942, and Pohl-Hildebrandt agreement, June 1, 1943, Documents N O - 4 i i 7 #, N O -4118*-, N O -4 119 * ; Pohl, circular, July 22, 1942, Document N O -488o# ; Hofmann to Lubkowitz, November 14, 1942, Document N O -4 i0 7 # ; Hofmann to Berkmann, December 30, 1942, Document N O -4 10 8 * 2 Himmler, circular, October 26, 1943, Himmler file 2 1 5 * . 3 Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 550.

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Hitler repeatedly reverted to this plan during the first months of the campaign. ‘ Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes’ were the people whose ‘ surplus population’ was to be ‘ steered into the Eastern regions, [for] they will become members of the Reich’. Such a movement, the Führer dreamt, would be analogous in importance to the amalgamation of German states in the Zollverein a century earlier.1 ‘ Negotiations’ took place with Denmark from the fall of 1941 on, and plans were made for Danish and Norwegian participation in the Ostland economy, which the Danish Minister of Transportation inspected in the spring of 1942.12 Above all, the Netherlands were encouraged to participate in the future development of Russia. As early as January 3, 1942, Rosenberg received Mussert to discuss the project. The German and Nazi Dutch press hinted at plans for Netherlands capital investments there; agronomists, gardeners, and artisans were invited to volunteer for migration ; and public pro­ nouncements predicted that up to five million Dutch peasants might move to the East to relieve overpopulation at home. A Dutch ‘ Eastern Company’ was established, and a group under Dr. Rost van Tonningen, a leading collaborator, toured the occupied areas in September 1942. Soon, however, Berlin was forced to admit that the difficulties in readjusting the Dutch economy from her overseas colonies to a new base in Russia were considerable.3 Though a few groups of Dutch specialists were assigned to the East (and some defected to the Soviet partisans), virtually nothing was accomplished, largely because the fortunes of war turned against the Reich.4 Of the ambitious resettlement plans, only one was actually 1 H T T , pp. 16, 34, 55 ; Picker, op. cit. p. 45. The Swiss, Hitler added characteristically, would be used ‘ only as inn-keepers’ . 2 Ostland (Berlin), xxiii, no. 11 (June 15, 1942), 193. Subsequent agreement with Sweden provided for an exchange of raw materials such as flax from the occupied East for Swedish hardware and dairy equipment. (RM fdbO., Chefgruppe Wirtschaftspolitische Kooperation, Informationsdienst, 1943, no* 2 /3> P- 4-) Though no French migration was anticipated, Rosenberg’s representative en­ couraged French participation in Eastern industry. (Rosenberg, ‘ Meldung an den Führer’ , March 20, 1943, Document 040-PS*.) 3 V B -B , June 14, 1942 ; Ostland, xxiii, no. 20 (October 15, 1942), 356, and no. 24 (December 15, 1942), 4 21-6 ; Rost van Tonningen, ‘ De Nederlandsche Oostcompagnie*, Nieuw Nederland (Utrecht), ix (1943), no. 9, 576-97 ; S. Coedhuys, ‘ Niederland im Osteinsatz*, D .O .K . (Berlin), no. 18 (August 12, 1943), PP- l ~3 J Deutsche Arbeit, xlii (1942), 265-70 ; Deutsche Ukraine-Zeitung (Rovno), September 20, 1942. For a useful summary of foreign participation in the East, see Claude Moret, UAllemagne et la reorganisation de VEurope (Neuchätel : Baconni&re, 1944), pp. 137-4 2. See also Rosenberg to Goring, January 2 1, 1942, W i/ID .77*, C R S. 4 A t the time of Stalingrad, Berlin forbade further mention of the Dutch migration prospects in the press. (RM fdbO., Richtlinien für die Pressezensur, P- 7 )

G.R.R.— U

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undertaken. It was, ironically, not one of those projected by the Generalplan Ost. Hitler had remarked in the summer of 1942 that the Ukraine ought to be Germanized within twenty years ; and Koch had approvingly spread the good word. When Himmler, on a visit to the Führer’s headquarters at Vinnitsa, echoed the thought by commenting that the partisans were menacing the Volksdeutsche and that there ought to be ‘ only German spoken here’, his anxious aides interpreted this as an order to Germanize the area — specifically, the ethnic German settlement of Hegewald, near Himmler’s field headquarters. In mid-August 1942, Himmler actually sanctioned a ‘ consolidation’ of German villages there after the harvest was in; 10,000 ethnic Germans were to be moved into the Hegewald district, where the settlers (unlike the rest of the population) were to receive land in private ownership.1 Indeed, in November 1942 the first seven villages were cleared of their Ukrainian inhabitants, and ethnic Germans from Volhynia were moved in. Both groups were moved under duress and were exposed to outright terror; material conditions among emigrants and immigrants were atrocious. In December the Volksdeutsches Gebiet Hegewald was established as a distinct administrative unit and, in line with the Generalplan, was exempted from the jurisdiction of the civilian administration.12 Though a few more experiments along similar lines were undertaken by the SS, the German retreat stopped further wholesale transfers of population. What little was done reverberated in a manner out of all proportion to the actual moves; to the indigenous population, it symbolized German intentions for the future. Although the actual resettlement experiments were small in scope and limited to a few villages in the raions of Zhitomir and Kalinovka [writes a leading German agrarian specialist], the grapevine carried the story to the farthest corners of the Ukraine and caused profound political resent­ ment. Repeated protests against such measures by leading representatives of the agricultural administration remained ineffective.3 Indeed, the whole matter added a new subject for controversy in Berlin. As usual, Rosenberg — himself a quixotic advocate of forced Germanization — objected not to the substance of the SS 1 Document N O -2 7 0 3* ; interview G -2. 2 R K U , circular, December 12, 1942, Zentralblatt, i (1942), 5 15 ; interview G -2. Hegewald, about 200 square miles large, was listed as having a population of 9000. 3 Otto Schiller, in Karl Brandt, et al.y Management of Agriculture and Food in the German-Occupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe (Stanford : Stanford Uni­ versity Press, 1953), p. 69.

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moves but to the fact that his office was being deprived of authority.1 When the Hegewald project was put in effect, he again wrote Himm­ ler that it was his business to authorize it but, now that the SS had already begun, he would retroactively approve it ‘ to make it legal’.2 Some of Rosenberg’s subordinates put their concern into cautious inquiries. Reporting on the Hegewald move, two officials wrote : This can be interpreted as the beginning of the Germanization of the Ukraine. What shall be done with the Ukrainian population is not clear. (Germanization of racially desirable parts ? Shift of the Ukrainian ethnic area beyond the Volga ? Maintenance of the Ukrainians in their present area with less political freedom ?)3 Likewise, the economic- branches under Goring objected to this ‘ child’s play’ : to their way of thinking, such measures were pre­ mature and of no help to the war effort.4 Others, such as the Army and the Foreign Office, eyeing the SS aggrandizement efforts with concern, privately dissented but preferred to remain silent. Himmler, on his part, was dissatisfied with the slow progress being made. According to Meyer-Hetling’s masterplan, at the end of the 25-year programme, half the residents of the Marken would be Germans, while about one-fourth of the strong-points’ residents would be Germans. This was not enough for the Reichsführer-SS. Himmler therefore wrote back that he had evidently been misunderstood. This twenty-year [we] plan must include the Germanization of Estonia and Latvia [in their entirety]. . . . I personally am convinced that it can be done. When Meyer-Hetling asked for more detailed guidance, Himmler, oblivious to the difficulties, added Lithuania and Belorussia (in addition to Ingria and the Crimea) to his list of ‘ must’s ’. L'appetit rient en mangeant. The Planning Staff returned to its work, and by 1 In early 1942 Rosenberg’s deputy, Alfred Meyer, protested to Heydrich about the rounding up of Baltic orphans to test their ‘ Germanizability *, for ‘ we would thereby expose our policy’ . Rosenberg promptly joined in : ‘ It is the exclusive right of the [Ostministerium] to determine the policy to be adopted . . (Jeckeln, circular, February 17, 1942 ; Meyer to Heydrich, April 27, 1942 ; Rosenberg to Lammers, M ay 6, 1942 ; all Document N G -9 5 1* .) See also Documents N O -4 10 1* and N O -4 10 4 *. 2 Rosenberg to Himmler, September 28, 1942, Himmler file 5 7 * ; and Himmler to Koch, September 8, 1942, Document N O -2 2 7 7 *. 3 Firgau and Gallmeier, ‘ Bericht’ , March 18, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - 1 3 * , Y IV O . As early as April 1942 Rosenberg’s ‘ racial expert*, Dr. Wetzel, submitted a careful criticism of the plan’s earliest version, deeming the projected eastward removal of some thirty million Slavs to be unrealistic. (Wetzel, ‘ Stellungnahme und Gedanken zum Generalplan O st’ , April 27, 1942, Document N G -2 3 2 5 * .) 4 See Documents 15 3 9 -P S * , and 264-P S, T M W C , xxv, 3 17 .

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February 1943 a revised Generalplan was ready.1 As late as January 12, 1943, Himmler was ready to proceed. The next day, with the crisis at Stalingrad imposing a spirit of ‘ total war’, Hitler issued a directive to stop work on all long-range post­ war projects. Reluctantly Himmler had to recognize that other matters had higher priority, and the resettlement plans fell victim to setbacks at the front.12 The Germanization projects may seem visionary at first sight. Yet they were an organic element of both doctrine and blueprints which the Nazi leadership had adopted for the East. They also typified the unique dualism inherent in the SS j a practical attempt to extend its own power; but also, not unlike the work of the Einsatzgruppen, a promotion of long-range, ideologically-conditioned projects rather than an implementation of tasks that might have immediately contributed to the war effort. Volksdeutsche Prior to the second World War, the largest concentration in Russia of German colonists, who had moved there by the thousands over the course of centuries, was found in the Volga-German Republic.3 An outpost of Deutschtum, far to the east, it was the object of special Soviet as well as German attention. In 1941, when the map of the Soviet Union was being cut up in anticipation of German victory, the Volga-Germans, too, were considered. Though the German advance to the Volga was axiomatic, Hitler failed to indicate the precise fate of the colonists there; consequently Rosenberg’s plans also lacked finality. Some of his staff proposed the creation of a ‘ channel’ through which the Reich could establish direct ties with the Volga-Germans and perhaps include them in the belt of anti-Muscovite border states. Initially he considered forming a synthetic Cossack region which was to extend northwards as far as Saratov ‘ so as to provide administrative contact with the territory of the Volga-Germans’ .4 But the idea of such an arbitrary gerrymander was soon dropped in 1 [Meyer-Hetling,] Generalplan Ost ; Himmler to Greifelt, June 2, 1942 ; Himmler to Meyer-Hetling, January 12, 1943 I Greifelt to Himmler, February 15, 1943 ; all Document N O -2 2 5 5 *. 2 Meyer-Hetling, testimony, Case V III, Engl, transcript, pp. 2 2 3 1, 2237 ; and S S P F Krim, ‘ Bericht über die Arbeitsergebnisse’ , M ay 3 1, 1944, Document NO -4009*. 3 T h e 1939 Soviet census listed about 1,425,000 Germans in the U .S .S .R ., of whom about one-third lived in the Volga-German A .S .S .R . German war-time claims went so far as to speak of over two million persons of German ancestry in the East — a considerable exaggeration. 4 Document 10 17-P S , T M W C , xxvi, 55 1. See also below, pp. 298-9,

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favour of a ‘ Greater Ukraine’. Thus at the time of the invasion, the Rosenberg office recommended that ‘ the Volga-German Repub­ lic, too, be included in the Ukrainian state so as to extricate it entirely from Russian influence’ .1 So unsure was he of the German sympathies of the Wolgadeutsche that Rosenberg felt safer in assigning them to the Ukraine. At the same time Rosenberg did not want to leave the VolgaGermans in their ‘ exposed position’ in the east, especially since he assumed initially that ‘ in any case the Volga is only an outer line which will not be held indefinitely’. He therefore outlined a plan to move ‘ suitable German settlers from among the Volga-Germans’ to the Baltic States, to the annexed provinces of Western Poland, or at least to the Ukraine. At the price of permitting ‘ less worthwhile ’ elements to go under, the so-called best ethnic forces would be consolidated in areas destined for thorough-going Germanization.2 Actually, Berlin never had to cope with this problem. Not only did the German troops never reach the Volga-German ‘ Autonomous’ Republic, but on August 28, 1941, the Soviet government ordered it liquidated and its population exiled to Asia for alleged treason. The same decree provided for the forcible evacuation of other Volksdeutsche from the path of the advancing Wehrmacht, evidently on the assumption that they would be prone to collaborate with the invaders. Even though considerable numbers were thus removed, especially from the Crimea,3 by September the Germans had occupied many of the areas, particularly along the Black Sea coast, where there were Russlanddeutsche communities. These ethnic Germans became a special problem for the occupa­ tion authorities. Rosenberg’s staff, in particular Georg Leibbrandt, had conducted extensive researches and had published a series of monographs on their location and activities. The instructions compiled on the basis of these findings were contradictory. Initially, the Volksdeutsche were to be handled like the other residents; applications for German citizenship were not to be accepted. At the same time, the OMi directed that ‘ those unmistakably established as ethnic Germans [will] even now enjoy advantages which are generally accorded to German citizens’.4 1 It was presumably to form part of the Saratov district. See Dienststelle Rosenberg ‘ Die neuen Ostgebiete’ , June 16, 19 4 1, Document 10 3 3 -P S * ; ‘ Besetzte Ostgebiete’ , June 25, 19 4 1, Document I0 36 -P S * ; Document 10 3 7 -P S 1*. 2 Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 5 5 0 ; Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’ [April 7, 1941], Document 10 18 -P S * ; interview G -12 . 3 See Gerhard Wolfrum, ‘ Die Rückführung der Deutschen aus der U d S S R ’ , Deutsche Arbeit, xliv, 164-8 ; Dr. Maurach, ‘ Die K rim ’ , Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), August-September 1942, pp. 36-7. 4 Document 10 56-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 604.

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The SS, as usual, sought to advance its own interests. As early as July 1941 Himmler authorized the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans [Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, or VoMi] to register all Volksdeutsche in the occupied areas and generally to favour them so as ‘ to lay the cornerstone for German leadership . . . in close co­ operation with the special action teams and the Security Police’. 1 The VoMi promptly established a special Sonderkommando to carry out the registration. Although some 45,000 responded in 486 districts of the R K U , the Germans continued to cite a figure of 200,000 ethnic Germans in their estimates.12 The difficulty of their status was heightened by the over­ whelming impression that the calibre of the ‘ liberated’ fellownationals left much to be desired. A majority barely spoke German ; intellectually and ‘ racially’, it was reported, they were inferior to their Slavic neighbours. After five months of war a high economic official complained that ‘ the ethnic Germans in the Ukraine do not constitute an element on which the administration and economy of the country can rely’. And their ‘ unsuitable quality’ induced the SS to plan the assignment of special advisers to rehabilitate them.3 None the less, the Volksdeutsche were given a distinctly privileged position under the Germans. Few in numbers, they invariably re­ ceived leading posts in local government. As the military government office of the rear area of Army Group South decreed, ‘ Ethnic Germans are to receive special consideration in filling positions in economy and administration’.4 They enjoyed numerous formal privileges in such fields as taxation, property rights, marriage, and education.5 They had easier personal access to Germans from the Reich and tended to become a superior caste. A German command­ ant would naturally prefer to make an ethnic German chief of the local police, deeming him to be more reliable and able to make him­ 1 Himmler to Lorenz, July n , 1941, Document N O -2474, N M T , iv, 8 51-2. 2 See Documents N O -2 7 0 3#, and Occ E 4 - 1 3 * , Y IV O . See also Sonderkommando, Ortsberichte, a series of reports from ethnic German communities, mostly in the Ukraine, Containers 14 6 -15 4 *, Deutsches Auslands-Institut records, L C . 3 ‘ Das Deutschtum in Witebsk’ , Deutsche Arbeit, xlii, 82-3 ; Frauenfeld, ‘ Denkschrift’ , February 10, 1944, p. 14, Document N O -5 3 9 4 * ; RüstungsInspekteur Ukraine to General Thomas, December 2, 19 41, Document 325 7-P S , T M W C , xxxii, 75 ; Document N O -270 3 * ; Firgau and Gallmeier, op. cit. pp. 4-7. 4 Befh. rückw. Heeresgebiet Süd, Abt. vii, order, August 16, 19 41, Document N O K W -16 9 1* . See also Document N O K W -2 5 13 * . 5 See Meyer, Recht, sections U I A4, U I A8, U II C5 ; R K U , Zentralblatt, ii (1943), 483-4 ; RM fdbO ., Verordnungsblatt, i (1942), 77 ; Reichsstelle für das Auswanderungswesen, Nachrichtenblatt, xxiv (1942), no. 1 1 ; Ostland (Riga), ii, no. 4 ; Kinkelin to Schiller, ‘ Begründung für die Sonderstellung der Volks­ deutschen in der neuen Landordnung’ , July 31, 1942, W i/ID .77*, C R S .

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self understood without an interpreter. In Nikolaev, a Swiss reporter observed, posters read : ‘ The Volksdeutsche in the Ukraine stand under the protection of the German Wehrmacht. Whoever abuses them or their property will be shot.’ 1 The advantages of the Volksdeutsche, though varying from area to area, were significant enough for the rest of the people to view them as the most privileged group — so much so that some nonGermans sought to demonstrate the existence of an imaginary ‘ German grandmother’ in order to share in the privileges.2 Here is how former residents of different parts of occupied Russia recalled the situation : The Volksdeutsche received German food rations. They provided the cadres of interpreters for various official agencies, agricultural units, work teams, etc. In Polotsk, the interpreter of the first mayor was a German. Another woman translator was with the Army bakery. The daughter of the German pastor was with the Ortskommandant but was later arrested as a Soviet agent. The separate stores for ethnic Germans caused irritation among the population in the Ukraine. Hatred was growing against the German colonists — something that had not existed before. In Khar’kov, the Volksdeutsche were in a privileged position. They received better rations, work, and preferential housing. When a German tried to rape the daughter of a friend of ours, another soldier told him, ‘ Let go, these are Volksdeutsche’.3 The ethnic Germans were among those due to be resettled in the new Marken. The SS pressed for the migration, but — like Goring and his economic agencies — Koch and his aides hampered 1 Paul Werner, Ein schweizer Journalist sieht Russland (Olten : Walter, 1942), p. 167 ; Gustav Fochler-Hauke, 4Die ersten Wiederauf baumassnahmen*, V B -M , November 7, 1941. See also Deutsche Post aus dem Osteny December 1941, p. 4 ; and Walter Engelhardt, K linzy: Bildnis einer russischen Stadt (Berlin : NibelungenVerlag, 1943). 2 The tabulation of answers to a group of questionnaires given to a random sample of Soviet refugees shows the following* replies to the question, ‘ Which of the following groups fared best under the German occupation ?* It should be borne in mind that some respondents came from areas where there were no ethnic Germans. 20 Russians Ukrainians 137 Caucasians 29 Crimean Tatars 28 Volksdeutsche 710 Others 26 (Project on the Soviet Social System, Russian Research Center, Harvard University, ‘ Wartime Occupation Code Book’ *, W O io.) 3 Interviews H -59, H-96, H -10 2, H - 1 2 1 , H -488. See also Document N O -

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the work of the SS screening teams at every step, faithful to their dictum that everything that did not help the war effort was un­ essential and had to be postponed.1 Indeed, the SS resettlement endeavours had little connection with the demands of the hour. In the words of a German official, ‘ the Reichsführer-SS wants to create ethnic German settlements for political reasons, without considering the lack of men and the unsuitable nature [of the Volks­ deutsche]. . . . It is a matter of political prestige to give them . . . a new home.’ 12 Only a few ethnic Germans were moved. In the summer of 1943, another effort was made, as a result of the registration, to grant German citizenship to some categories of Volksdeutsche.3 This, too, remained unfulfilled because of the German retreat. Some of the ethnic Germans had by then come to question the benefits of ‘ liberation’. Yet for them there was no returning to the Soviets, for they could expect little clemency. With the German withdrawal, they too were evacuated westwards — over 300,000 men, women, and children (probably not all, strictly speaking, ‘ ethnic Germans’).4 Thus ended their brief heyday of glory and graft. Even then, however, a bitter dispute arose over their disposition. The VoMi and RuSH A objected violently to the plans of the OMi underlings (backed by Berger) to keep the Volksdeutsche ready for a return to the East as soon as the German ‘ reoccupation’ began. Still dreaming of a new advance, the administrators sought to make the ethnic Germans into cadres of ‘ indigenous ’ leadership on which they could rely in the future. The SS Resettlement Office, on the other hand, promoted the segregation of ethnic Germans from ‘ genuine Easterners’. It recognized, once the whole experiment was over, that because the ethnic Germans have absorbed to a large extent Bolshevik and Russian doctrine, they cannot be considered suitable persons for guidance and leadership in Russia. 1 Documents Occ E 4 - 1 3 * , Y IV O ; and N O -2 2 7 7 *. 2 ‘ Vermerk über die Tagung in Rowno vom 2 6 .-2 8 .8 .19 4 2’ , Document 264PS, T M W C , xxv, 3 17 . Berlin proudly wrote that ‘ No German family shall in the future live alone among alien nationalities : wherever the Germans are scattered, they will be pulled out and concentrated in German villages’ . (Zierke, ‘ Sammlung der Versprengten’ , V B -M , July 13 , 1943.) 3 Frick and Rosenberg, decree, M ay 19, 1943, R K U , Verordnungsblatt, ii, no. 12. Full ‘ Germanization’ was admitted to be impossible. See also Bräutigam, ‘ Überblick über die besetzen Ostgebiete’ (Tübingen : Institut für Besatzungs­ fragen, 1954), pp. 78-9. 4 Wolfrum, op. cit. pp. 164-8 ; D N B report, Ju ly 13, 1944, cited in Kulischer, op. cit. p. 267 ; and Arnold and Veronica M. Toynbee, eds., Hitler's Europe (London : Oxford University Press, 1954), pp. 84-5.

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With Himmler’s approval, they were therefore to settle in the West Polish provinces annexed to the Reich.1 It was a sad admission of failure, however questionable the explanation. Ideological tenets and narrow concepts of ‘ utility’ had combined to make this group the salt of the earth, not on the basis of merit but by the shibboleths of race. Now Berlin had to admit that its ‘ mainstay’ had proved incapable of leading the Untermenschen. Meanwhile German and Soviet policies had cost the Volksdeutsche their homes and hearths. Muscovy In the new socio-ethnic hierarchy which Hitler and Rosenberg planned to establish, the Great Russians were to form the lowest stratum — preserved from physical obliteration but reduced to the role of labourers and servants. The attitude of the Nazi leadership toward Russia and the Russians has become amply manifest in the preceding chapters. It remains only to review some of the specific directives which were to determine the political destiny of ‘ Rump Russia’ . Rosenberg echoed Hitler’s dictum that superior power gave Germany the right to dispose of the conquered areas as it saw fit. Russia was not to be a member of the family of nations; ‘ given the might of the German Wehrmacht, she is no longer a subject of European politics but an object of German policy’.2 The wishes of the population could be ignored with impunity ; Germany’s interests alone were to prevail. Rosenberg formulated these in his first memorandum after receiving his assignment from H itler: in addition to the elimination of Communists and Jews, they were (1) the destruction of Russia as a state, and the assurance of her permanent weakness; (2) the economic exploitation of Russia by Germany ; (3) the use of Rump Russia as a dumping ground for undesirables.3 As has been shown, the last of these goals remained almost entirely on paper. The plans and practices of economic exploitation will be discussed in subsequent chapters. The first goal, Russia’s impotence, was to be attained by the permanent destruction of her armed forces, and also, as Rosenberg never tired of stressing, by the partition of the U .S.S.R . into a number of distinct political entities. The new German-controlled national areas to be formed around the 1 Brückner to Lorenz, March 18, 1944, Document N O -5328 , N M T , iv, 820 -1, ‘ Rede des Reichsleiters*, June 20, 19 41, Document I0 58-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 6 13. 3 Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 549.

2 Rosenberg,

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perimeter of Rump Russia were awarded, beyond their ethnic borders, ‘ considerable regions of the Russian heartland’. Thus the Ukraine was to obtain the vast Great Russian provinces of Briansk, Kursk, Vorenezh, Saratov, and Stalingrad; the Caucasus was to include Krasnodar, Stavropol’, and Astrakhan; Ostland was to extend eastwards beyond Novgorod and Smolensk ; Leningrad was either to be razed to the ground or set up as a separate German district. The remainder of the ‘ heartland ’ was to become a Germancontrolled Reich Commissariat Muscovy (R K M ); the term, Russia, was to be barred for ever. The choice of the name ‘ Muscovy’ suggested the assumptions underlying Rosenberg’s concept — and in its anti-Russian aspects it fully mirrored Hitler’s own attitude : the aim was to throw Russia backwards and eastwards. Long before the war, Rosenberg had spoken of the necessity to have ‘ the Russians move their centre of gravity to A sia’ : The sense of history has proceeded not from east to west . . . but ‘ from west to east’, from the Rhine to the Vistula, from Moscow to Tomsk: this is how it must resound once again. The ‘ Russian’ whom Peter [the Great] and Catherine [II] cursed was the genuine Russian. One should not have forced Europe upon him.1 Now this ‘ Europeanizing’ was to cease. After the separation of the non-Russian nationalities, Rosenberg pontificated, the remaining Russia will be far removed from the present German borders and will be fenced in, on its western side, both from the north and from the south. Corresponding to its actual population, its centre of gravity should then lie in the Urals if not in Siberia.2 There was no German plan to occupy all of Siberia; Hitler repeatedly commented that he would be content to let the Russians live behind the ‘ mobile frontier’ he planned to erect. Of course, ‘ in case of necessity, we shall renew our advance wherever a new centre of resistance is formed’. But the main point, the Führer told his associates, was this : We must take care to prevent a military power from ever again establishing itself on this side of the Urals. . . . When I say, on this side of the Urals, I mean a line running two or three hundred kilometres east of the Urals. This space in Russia must always be dominated by Germans.3 1 Rosenberg, Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Munich : Hoheneichen-Verlag, 1935), pp. 6 41-2. 2 Document 10 37 -P S *. 3 H T T , pp. 5, 15 (entries for Ju ly 5 and 26, 1941).

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As far as the Russians on ‘ this’ side of the prospective new border were concerned, Hitler declared, ‘ We’re not going to play at children’s nurses : we’re absolutely without obligations as far as these people are concerned’.1 Rosenberg had used almost the same phrase in describing the Great Russians on the eve of the invasion : Germany had ‘ no responsibility whatsoever ’ for feeding them. We know [he stated] that this fact is the result of dire necessity, unaffected by any feeling. Unquestionably a very extensive evacuation will be necessary, and the Russians must look ahead to very hard years. . . . The reversal of Russian dynamics towards the East is a task which will require strong personalities. Rosenberg concluded his revealing discussion with a favourite excursion on his views of the ‘ Russian soul’ . The primitive Russian, he granted condescendingly, was a good artisan or dancer. He was much unlike the ‘ European’, however, and contact with the West produced a conflict in him. As symbolized by the struggle between Turgenev and Dostoevskii, the Russian soul, rent in two, found no way out. If, however, the West should once more be closed to the Russians, they will be obliged to fall back on their genuine, original forces and on the space where they belong. . . . Perhaps in a hundred years a historian will see this decision in a different light from the way it seems possible for a Russian to view it today.2 While periodically reverting to his pseudo-psychoanalysis of the Russian — a favourite pastime in German ‘ intellectual’ circles — Rosenberg was soon absorbed in more practical concerns.3 On the formal side, Muscovy was to become a Reichskom­ missariat. Yet compared with Ostland, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus, the policy to be implemented in the R K M was to be admittedly one of ‘ thorough-going ruthlessness’. Its eight General Commissariats would extend from the Arctic Ocean to the borders of Turkestan, including the Central Russian area of Moscow and G or’kii, as well as Tataria, Chuvashia, and Bashkiria, and the vast Komi region to the north; beyond the Urals, the Sverdlovsk com­ missariat would encompass the industrial areas of Magnitogorsk and Cheliabinsk. Thus the R K M would have a population of some sixty million, would extend somewhat beyond the Urals to include 1 Ibid, p. 69 (entry for October 17, 1941). 2 Document 1058-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 622-3. Italics mine. 3 For a specimen of the pseudo-scientific analyses of the ‘ Russian national character’ then in vogue in Germany, see the curious article, G. R. Heyer, ‘ Zur Psychologie des Ostraumes’ , Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (Heidelberg), Ju ly 1942, pp. 3 1 2 ff.

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the richer adjacent areas, and would incorporate sizeable nonRussian minorities.1 ‘ This occupation’, Rosenberg predicted about Muscovy, ‘ will evidently have an entirely different character from that of the Baltic provinces, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus.’ The problem here was not to raise or develop but to keep down. His choice to conduct the policy of ‘ suppression’ there was Erich Koch, the man he deemed too brutal for the Ukraine.12 However, when Hitler assigned Koch to the R K U , the post in Moscow went to a high SA officer, Siegfried Kasche.3 Kasche’s SA background earned him the prompt hostility of Himmler, who told Rosenberg that he considered Kasche ‘ a man of the desk, in no wise energetic or strong, and an outspoken enemy of the S S ’.4 Probably another storm would have broken, had the R K M been brought to life, but Moscow never fell to the Germans, and Kasche never assumed office. Assigned as German ‘ Minister’ to puppet Croatia, Kasche as late as 1944 naively continued to look forward to his assignment in Moscow.5

The various parts of the Russian republic between the Gulf of Finland and the Sea of Azov which fell into German hands, were completely under military rule. The Ostministerium never exercised control over any of them. Much of the Great Russian territory remained part of the front-line 2one, where no full-fledged administra­ tion was established; in the Army and Army Group rear areas, the occupation was shorter lived than in Ostland and the Ukraine. Each German military government unit followed its own standards of conduct within the framework of very broad and vague directives prescribed from above. Conditions varied from village to village, from year to year, as commandants and detachments were moved. From 1942 on, increasing chunks of these areas fell under the control 1 Documents 10 30 -P S *, 10 3 3 -P S * , 10 3 5 -P S * , 10 36 -P S *. Though never officially published, the planned borders of ‘ M uscovy’ were hinted at in an article, ‘ Russland — nicht Staat, sondern Volksboden*, Ostland (Berlin), April 15, 1942. See also map, p. 55 above. Rosenberg in April 1941 did not propose to make Muscovy a co-equal Reichskommissariat but had added it to his list by early M ay 19 4 1. See Document io i 8-PS#, and interview G -14 . On the Idel-Ural problem, see above, pp. 270-3. 2 Rosenberg, appendix to ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’ [April 7, 1941], Document 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 557. 3 [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk’ , July 16, 19 41, Document 2 2 1 - L , T M W C , xxxviii, 91. 4 Himmler, ‘ Aktennotiz’ on conference with Rosenberg, November 15, 19 41, Document N O -5 32 9 *. See also Document N G -2 7 7 5 * . 5 Erich Kordt, Wahn und Wirklichkeit (Stuttgart : Union Deutsche Verlags­ gesellschaft, 1948), p. 305 n.

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of Soviet partisans, restricting effective German occupation to towns and major arteries of transportation. It is thus impossible to speak of any distinct ‘ policy’ pursued in the occupied areas of Russia proper. The activities of military government and indigenous local administration cannot meaningfully be construed as the expression of any over-all standards of conduct. The bulk of Army com­ mandants and economic officials made little fundamental distinction between Great Russia, Belorussia, and the Ukraine. Their attitude and course of action among the Great Russians were generally as good or as bad as elsewhere. The major issues that animated the population were the same as elsewhere in the occupied East. The fate of collective farming, material standards, cultural activities, the treatment of prisoners of war and forced labourers, and Russian political aspirations were foremost among them. Each will be considered below, and it will be found that in each instance certain ‘ tactical’ concessions were made by the Germans in the face of setbacks. The policy of ‘ ignoring the population’, adopted on the eve of the attack, proved impossible of execution. Most frequently, however, retreats from Berlin’s extreme intentions were undertaken by the commanders in the field. Hitler and Rosenberg and Himmler, almost to the very end, frowned on such endeavours. From 1942 on, Berlin only rarely found the leisure to discuss the future of Muscovy. Yet the tenacity and rigidity of official thinking were reflected in what little material German censorship passed on this subject. A widely-heralded book published in Germany by a Finnish-born professor, Axel von Gadolin, for instance, confirmed the determination of the ‘ New Europe’ to render impossible the re-emergence of a Russian state — not only a ‘ R ed’ or ‘ White’ Russia but even in a ‘ national totalitarian’ form. A Nazi Russia might within a few generations become ‘ as great a danger as Russia was under Peter the Great’. Hence, in Rosenberg style, the book advocated the ‘ extermination of the Russian state tradition’ by a process of double migration : The complete settlement of the East presupposes a double eastward transfer of peoples: from the west the European element gradually streams into the Russian plains; and a wave of Russians returns [«V /] east of the Volga to make room for the former.1 Nothing had changed. Only once, after all was lost, did Rosen­ berg personally reopen the question of the future Russia. In 1 Axel von Gadolin, Der Norden, der Ostraum und das neue Europa (Munich : Rührig, 1943), pp. 138-42, 158.

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October 1944, at a moment of supreme crisis, when Hitler and Himm­ ler seemed to have moved away from his ‘anti-Muscovite’ concept, Rosenberg restated his own position in a desperate appeal to the Führer.1 Waging a losing battle, he was willing to concede to the Great Russians, along with the other Soviet nationalities, some kind of state in the future. Yet he still maintained that above all the Russian space, whose people are today being compelled to act as the carrier of Jewish world revolution, must be assured that it will be able to mobilize its cultural and economic forces in its Lebensraum — Siberia. . . .12 Not even in the face of defeat did Rosenberg, who had compromised so often, find it possible to yield on this fundamental point. At the beginning as at the end of the war, Russia was slated to be the orphan satrapy of the New Order. The Cossacks German policy toward the Slavic population of the Soviet Union made one purposeful exception to the general rule of derogation. The object of this unusual attitude were the Cossacks. A group endowed with distinct traditions, an aura of ‘ counter-revolutionary’ convictions, and a genuine record of military prowess, the Cossacks lived scattered in their own settlements — stanitsas — along the Dnieper, Don, Kuban, and Terek Rivers. Descendants of Russian, Ukrainian, and other soldiers, adventurers, peasants, and fugitives, they formed a social and cultural entity without being a distinct ethnic group. Much publicized in Germany (thanks to the contacts with influential German circles of some of their leaders abroad, such as General Peter Krasnov), the Cossacks occupied a separate position in the eyes of German policy-makers.3 Rosenberg had originally toyed with the idea of an inflated Cossack ‘ Don-and-Volga’ Region, to reduce the area of Muscovy and to form a bridge between the Ukraine and the Caucasus in the Rosenberg shelter-belt of buffers.4 Since this area had none of the ‘ pronounced national feelings’ which he hoped to foster in the Ukraine and Caucasus, and since the Cossacks were basically much 1 See below, pp. 6 29 -31. 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Vorschlag für eine Regelung der Ostpolitik’ , October 12, 1944, Document Rosenberg-14, T M W C , xli, 192. 3 There are no adequate English-language studies of the historical and cultural background of the Cossacks. For a popular account, see Maurice Hindus, The Cossacks (Garden City : Doubleday, 1945). See also [S S Wannsee-Institut,] ‘ Das Kosakentum* [Berlin, 1942]*. 4 Document 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 5 5 1.

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like the Russians, ‘ the administration will undoubtedly have to be sterner here [since] the Don-and-Volga area must, at first anyway, be regarded as hostile’.1 This synthetic gerrymander stretching from Rostov to Saratov and combining heterogeneous areas and various ethnic groups was soon abandoned even by the Ostmini­ sterium. In this decision one factor was the desire to create a strong Ukraine which would include some of the Cossack settle­ ments, but leave those along the Kuban and Terek to the future R K K .2 Using national allegiance as the touchstone of its policy, Rosenberg’s staff refused to recognize the Cossacks as a bona fide nationality. On the other hand, they were exempted from the status of Untermenschen. So strong were the stereotypes of their antiBolshevik record that even before the end of 1941 the OKW sanctioned the formation of Cossack military units to fight on the German side — at a time when no other Slavs were permitted to bear arms. On April 15, 1942, Hitler personally permitted the use of Cossacks, both in anti-partisan warfare — the primary duty assigned to them — and in combat.3 In the summer of 1942, when the German Army was poised to push south past Rostov, directives specified that the Cossacks were to be treated as ‘ friends’.4 As soon as Army Group ‘ A ’ had occupied the Kuban area, its ‘ enlightened’ military government officers requested permission from Berlin to establish a ‘ Cossack District’ — not as the nucleus of a future state but as an experimental area in which, with all but one German agency withdrawn, the indigenous population would be permitted to establish full self-government. Freedom in cultural, educational, and religious activities was to be granted; raion chiefs and mayors would be groomed for a prospective ‘ ataman govern­ ment’ ; and, contingent on their co-operation, the Cossack peasantry was to be promised the early dissolution of collective farms. With 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 2 ’ [April 7, 1941], Document 10 18 -P S * . 2 In July 1942, when the transfer of further areas from military to civil rule was contemplated, Rosenberg — largely to restrict Koch’s domain — revived momen­ tarily the plan for a fifth Reichskommissariat from Saratov to the Caspian and Sea of Azov. (Rosenberg to Hitler, Ju ly 29, 1942, E A P 99/1002*, C R S .) 3 For the Nazi attitudes towards collaborator army units, see below, Chapter xxv. The details of Cossack history during the war include many moot areas deserving of further investigation. Cossack ‘ hundreds’ (sotni) were formed as early as 19 4 1, and it is claimed that Hitler authorized their activation on October 22, 19 4 1. (Boris Nicolaevsky, ‘ Porazhencheskoe dvizhenie 19 4 1-19 4 5 godov’ , NovyiZhurnal [New York], xviii, 2 14 ; and David Chavchavadze, ‘ The Vlassov Movement’ , M S * [Yale University, 1950], pp. 78-9.) 4 Sdf. Siefers, ‘ Bericht über Versuchsgebiet im Kuban-Kosakenraum’ , January 10, 1943, E A P 99/463*, C R S .

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the approval of General Wagner’s office in Berlin, the District was activated as of October 1, 1942, including for the time being six raions north of the lower Kuban, with an initial population of about 160,000, but which was to be enlarged at a later date.1 The order was issued without co-ordination with the Ostmini­ sterium. When Schickedanz learned of the proclamation of the ‘ first autonomous state under our sovereignty’ in the East, he resentfully requested clarification: his office tolerated no proCossack or pro-autonomy ‘ deviations’. At the OKH he was told that all rumours of a Cossack republic were ‘ utterly unfounded’ . When they were, none the less, confirmed, Schickedanz protested against both the independent action taken by the Army and the project itself.12 The SS likewise objected to the District for ‘ political reasons’. None the less, on November 5 the QuartermasterGeneral formally approved its formation. A local police force was recruited; by January 1943 the District’s borders were to be ex­ panded, and a Cossack army commander was to be appointed; discussion began on the problem of long-range autonomy, which would not preclude entry into loose federation with the Ukraine, Russia, or the Caucasus.3 Far-reaching reforms were contemplated in agriculture, though in practice little was achieved. Other plans called for the recruitment of 25,000 Cossack volunteers to fight with the German Army, but again there was no time to implement them. By January 1943 the Army Group was in full retreat, and the experimental district collapsed.4 A short-lived experiment, the Cossack District showed how the Army (or at least some of its elements) could within limits defy the Ostministerium and other agencies in Berlin. It also showed some German officials that, where the Soviet population was given a chance to work out its own problems, not only no calamity ensued but the population was generally inclined to work more whole­ heartedly with the Germans. When Kleist’s army withdrew from the Kuban, considerable numbers of Cossack refugees joined the exodus, and by late 1943 more than 20,000 Cossacks — or rather, men 1 Sdf. Siefers, 4Bericht über Versuchsgebiet im Kuban-Kosakenraum interview H -500. On the policy of Arm y Group 4A \ see above, pp. 238 -4 1. 2 Bräutigam, memorandum, October 14, 19 4 2 * ; Schickedanz,4Aktenvermerk*, November 4, 1942, E A P 99/39*, C R S ; Bräutigam, 4D iary’,* L C . 3 Siefers, op. cit. pp. 8 -11. 4 Ibid. pp. 18-26. There were considerable differences among German agencies as to whether only the indigenous Cossacks were to receive land or whether the recent immigrants as well as Great Russian residents were to be granted equal status. Characteristically, the Ostministerium argued for the removal of Russian non-Cossacks from the stanitsas to the unpartitioned state farms, and for the allotment of land to old-time Cossacks only.

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claiming to be Cossacks — were fighting in various Germansponsored formations.1 German policy towards the Cossacks was never entirely clarified. While most agencies, including Rosenberg’s, held that ‘ the Cossacks are not a nationality’ and deserved no special treatment, the Army, less wedded to the Nazi acid test of race, favoured them for practical reasons: the manpower shortage was beginning to make itself felt. A small minority of Cossacks and Germans, however, went further. They insisted that ‘ according to the latest research, the Cossacks are descendants of a mixture of Nordic and Dinaric races . . . and have thus preserved strong blood ties to their original German homeland’ . Ludicrous and fantastic, this ‘ theory’ suited well those Cossack nationalists who agitated for a ‘ Gothic-Circassian’ Cossack state, a ‘ Greater Cossackia’ stretching from the central Ukraine to the Samara River or even to the Emba, in Siberia.2 In practice, the Army’s utilitarian approach prevailed. The pro-Cossack spokesmen persuaded both Keitel and Rosenberg to issue a joint proclamation to the Cossacks. This manifesto, released on November 10, 1943, pledged the eventual return of their home­ lands and privileges, Including a modicum of autonomy and private land ownership. Until their return home was possible, Germany appointed itself their protector.3 The proclamation, unique in German Ostpolitik, was symptomatic of the change in tactics. The exemption of the Cossacks from the Untermensch formula was pushed through largely because of military necessity and primarily by military men. The consent to make sweeping and (from the 1941 1 The best source on Cossack war-time activities is the Cossack press ; for a bibliography, see ‘ Kazach’ia presa v 19 4 1-19 4 5 gg.*, Kazachii vestnik (Paris), no. 1/92 (June 15, 1951). See also Aleksei Alymov, ‘ Stavropol1 — Berlin’ , Chasovoi (Brussels), nos. 292-300 (1949-50) ; interview H-500 ; Documents N O -2 4 19 * — 2424*. T w o fictional accounts are Croixelles (pseud.), Antlitz ohne Gnade (Celle : Schneekluth-Verlag, 1950), and Edwin Erich Dwinger, Sie sachten die Freiheit (Freiburg : Dikreiter, 1952). See also below, p. 538. 2 This faction was led by the Cossack Nationalists (K N D ) under Vasilii Glazkov, editor of Kazachii Vestnik (Prague, 19 4 1-5 ). T he members of this group had to ‘ recognize the Führer Adolf Hitler as the supreme defender of the Cossack Nation*. Its organ abounded in anti-Western and anti-Semitic themes. Another conflict in Cossack circles was due to friction among the ‘ territorial* (Don, Kuban, Terek) Cossacks. Formally, General Krasnov remained head of the ‘ Central Cossack Office* in Berlin, but German support was divided to the very end. See also John Kay, ‘ Kosakia’ , Deutsche Arbeit, November 1942, pp. 325-39 ; and Himmler file 334 *. 3 Text in Jahrbuch der Weltpolitik (Berlin), 1944, pp. 200-1. The promise of a privileged ‘ land grant’ to the Cossacks aroused the enmity of other Osttruppen fighting on the German side. T he manifesto, like the transfer of most other military collaborators out of Soviet territory a few weeks earlier, was intended to raise the morale of and stem the increasing desertions from among the Osttruppen.

G.R.R.--- X

302

Peoples and Policies

pt.

n

point of view) most unorthodox promises to any group of Soviet citizens epitomized the increasing shift from the domain of occupa­ tion policy to efforts calculated to rally and persuade those Soviet citizens who — in military units, Ostarbeiter camps, and prisonerof-war camps — remained under German control.

PART I I I

P R O B L E M S A N D P R A C T IC E

C H A P T E R XV

ECONOMIC PO LICY:

NAZI AIM S AND OUTLOOK

In terms of long-range economic policy, the newly occupied Eastern territories shall be exploited from colonial points of view and with colonial methods.— G oring, directive, November 8, 1941

German Economic Goals T h e constant and barely concealed German aim for the Eastern economy was to exploit it for the benefit of the Reich. This aim shaped both the long-range plans of colonization and the short­ term feeding of Eastern resources into the German war machine. At no time were the interests of the indigenous population given serious consideration. The yardstick of policy in the East, Berlin decreed in its basic economic directives, was ‘ the welfare of the German Reich and People’.1 The traditional German outlook on the complementary economic roles of an industrial Germany and an agrarian Russia had left its mark on the blueprints drawn up in 1941. In contrast with earlier schemes based on reciprocity, however, the approach — exploiting Eastern agriculture and banishing industry from Russia =— amounted to pure colonialism. As a leading official of the Ostministerium put it, the East would supply Europe with raw materials, and in return Germany would ship manufactured goods to the East.2 1 RM fdbO., Richtlinien für die Wirtschaftsführung, Teil A , 2nd ed. (Berlin, April 1942), p. 5. The two sets of basic economic directives, published in book form, were the above Richtlinieny originating in the Ostministerium and known (and hereafter cited) as the Braune Mappe (Brown Folder) and nicknamed Braunes Kamel (Brown Camel) ; and the analogous Richtlinien für die Führung der Wirt­ schaft published by the Wirtschaftsführungsstab Ost, whose role is discussed below (p. 315 ) ; this publication was conveniently abbreviated (and is cited hereafter) as the Grüne Mappe (Green Folder) and was customarily referred to in derogatory terms as the Grüne Esel (Green Jackass). Both consisted of several parts and went through several editions, most of which were introduced at the Nuremberg trials, as indicated below. Braune Mappey Teil I (Ostland), preliminary draft, June 19 41, Documents 10 37-P S , 1056-P S. Teil I I (Ukraine), Document 70 2-P S. Teil A y ist ed., December 15, 1941, draft, Document 1529 -P S ; 2nd ed., April 1942, Document N I - 1 0 1 19. Grüne Mappe, Teil /, ist ed., June 19 4 1, Document 17 4 3 -P S ; 2nd ed., Ju ly 1941, Documents 4 7 2 -E C , N I-14 0 9 , N I-6366. Teil //, 3rd ed., September 1942, Document 34 7 -E C . 2 Ter-Nedden, ‘ Erschliessung und Neuaufbau der Wirtschaft in den besetzten Ostgebieten*, Probleme des Ostraumes (Berlin : RM fdbO ., 1942), p. 47. Even 305

306

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

These goals were not entirely conditioned by the Nazi view of Russia alone. The Grossraum concept restricted the economic functions of ‘ inferior’ areas — and these included Poland, Yugo­ slavia, Rumania, and others in addition to the U .S.S.R . — to the more rudimentary processes, primarily to extractive branches of economy : agriculture, mining, and raw materials.1 The transparent political aim of this approach was to retain the more highly developed forms of economic life, particularly heavy industry and control of finances, at the hub of power, Germany. While steadfastly refusing to ‘ integrate’ the Russian nation into the European political community, Hitler insisted on ‘ integrating’ the Eastern economy into that of Europe so as to make its resources available to the West. Formerly [the Führer maintained] it would have been impossible for a large state with almost unlimited resources to exist in Eastern Europe . . . while densely populated Central and Western Europe lack raw materials, which they must import from overseas. We must therefore completely open up the territories of the European East, so rich in raw materials, to the highly populated areas of the European West. In return, Hitler speculated, Russia would provide a vast market for German products. After the war, European industry ‘ would no longer need any foreign markets’ because the Soviet population ‘ lives on so low a standard that all industrial products, beginning with the simplest waterglass, could be marketed there’ .2 Official plans therefore foresaw that ‘ the occupied Eastern territories [would] always be available to the West as an outlet for products requiring intensive labour. . . . ’ 3 more outspoken was the policy pronouncement of Goring, who at a conference on November 8, 1941, expressed German aims and methods in terms which serve as the motto for this chapter. (Nagel to Thomas, November 25, 1 9 4 1 * ; see also Document N I-440, N M T , xiii, 857-66.) Whatever the war-time demands, it was publicly declared, ‘ in the long run, the agrarian and raw-material character of these [Eastern] territories must be preserved as much a$ possible’ . (Deutsche Post aus dem Osten [Berlin], November 1941, pp. 4-5.) 1 For the most comprehensive Nazi discussion, see Werner Best, ‘ Grundfragen einer deutschen Grossraum-Verwaltung’ , Festgabe für Heinrich Himmler (Darm­ stadt : Wittich, 1941), pp. 33-60 ; for a discussion of German economic policy, see Karl Brandt et al.y Management of Agriculture and Food in the GermanOccupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1953). 2 Generalkommissar Schmidt [Report on conference with Hitler and SeyssInquart], September 26, 1941, Document N G - 3 5 1 3 * ; H T T , pp. 42-3 (entry for September 25, 1941). 3 Braune Mappe, Teil A y 2nd ed., p. 12. The obverse of this plan contributed to the decision to attach the agrarian Ukraine to the West more closely than the industrialized areas of the U .S .S .R . Ukrainian food surplus sold to Germany could ‘ be paid for only if it [the Ukraine] obtains its industrial consumer goods

on. xv

Economic Policy

307

Germany’s benefits from the Eastern economy were to go even further. ‘ M y plan’, Hitler told his associates, ‘ is that we should take profits on whatever comes our way.’ 1 In this future scheme of things, Soviet industry had no raison d'etre. A de-industrialization (or ‘ naturalization’) policy would redound to the Reich’s political and economic advantage in that . . . (1) it prevents the politically undesirable concentration of the native population in industrial centres ; (2) the production and utilization of products of intense labour remain with the Reich and the old industrial countries of Europe, assuring them of a satisfactory standard of living.2 The bulk of Soviet industry was destined, in the long run, either to be destroyed or, as Hitler suggested on one occasion, to be transferred to the West. If the East was no longer ‘ primitive’ and ‘ agrarian’, it had to be made so. Where theory and reality diverged, facts were to be changed to conform with dogma. The Demands of the Hour While quest for economic gain had not been the most compelling motive for Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, to the men concerned with the economic exploitation of the East the immediate demands for grain, oil, and raw materials were the alpha and omega of Germany’s occupation policy. The members of the economic staffs responsible for the utilization of Eastern resources were neither diplomats of the old school nor ivory-tower economists, nor, finally, dogmatic extremists. Coldly collecting and analysing facts, the war economists calculated months before the invasion that the Soviet territory west of the so-called ‘ AA ’ (Archangel-Astrakhan) line would suffice to compensate for most German shortages during the balance of the war. According to them — and the entire economic-administrative edifice from Goring down — long-range political plans (whether of the Bormann or the Rosenberg variety) were subordinate to the urgent economic demands of the war : The immediate goal, having top priority . . . for the newly occupied Eastern territories, is to win the present war, to which the Eastern from Germany or Europe. Russian competition . . . must therefore be elimi­ nated. ’ (W iStab Ost, Gruppe Landwirtschaft, ‘ Wirtschaftspolitische Richtlinien’ , M ay 23, 19 41, Document 126 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 144.) 1 H T T > P- 432 Braune Mappe, Teil A> 2nd ed., p. 12. According to Goring, ‘ it [was] the task of European, and especially German, industry to improve and process the raw materials and semi-finished goods from the occupied East and to satisfy the most urgent demand for industrial consumer goods and means of production in the colonially exploited Eastern territories’ . (Nagel to Thomas, op. cit.)

3°8

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

territories must contribute extensively by securing the independence of Europe in food and raw materials. This immediate goal has priority even when occasionally a measure necessary for the prosecution of the war is in conflict with intentions for the future shaping of the Ostraum.1 The conflict between dogma and practice was recognized in the domain of economics earlier than in some other areas. Maximum exploitation meant the neglect of long-range political and economic transformations which Berlin proposed to carry out. ‘ For the duration of the war the demands of the war economy are the supreme law of all economic activity in the newly occupied Eastern territories.’ 2 Reluctantly Rosenberg and his staff had to recognize the cogency of this argument. German needs were particularly acute in agriculture. ‘ According to the orders of the Führer, all measures must be taken which are necessary for the immediate and maximum exploitation of the occupied areas in favour of Germany.’ In 1939 Germany’s grain reserves had totalled about seven million tons; by 1941 they had shrunk con­ siderably, though under the terms of the commercial treaty of 1940 the Soviet Union had undertaken to deliver sizeable quantities in the following year. On the eve of the invasion the economic planners expected the armies in the East to live off the land and counted on amassing some seven million tons of grain a year from the future German East. An increase in productivity of 10 or 20 per cent, Berlin anticipated not unrealistically, should not prove an insuperable task; it would suffice to make up the deficit for German-controlled Europe. What mattered above all was neither quality of grains nor the future structure and social relations on the farm but sheer quantity of produce and efficiency in collection — a thesis well in line with the over-all outlook upon the East.3 In agriculture the immediate demands of the war economy did not initially necessitate a radical re-thinking of German long-range 1 Braune Mappe, Teil A> 2nd ed., p. 5. 2 Nagel to Thomas, op. cit. It was publicly admitted that the immediate goal was to produce 4war-essential goods, in the broadest sense of the term, as speedily as possible*. (Hans Thode, ‘ Lebensraum im Osten*, Die Ostwirtschaft [Berlin], xxxi [March 1942], 37-8.) 3 Grüne Mappe, Teil /, ist ed., p. 3. Riecke, ‘ Aufgaben der Landwirtschaft im Osten*, Probleme des Ostraumes, p. 32 ; Brandt, op. cit. pp. 56-7 ; Niederschle­ sisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ernährungsreserven im Osten (Breslau, 1943 ?), Teil iii, p. 29. Hitler, more ambitious than the technicians, at times expected that ‘ from the East we shall get between ten and twelve million tons of grain annually* — not an impossible figure ; at other times, he recklessly spoke of ‘ increasing agricultural production in the Ukraine by only 50 per cent* as sufficient to provide bread for 25 to 30 million more people. Such an increase, he added, in a revelation of his lack of understanding, would be a ‘ trifle*. (H T T , pp. 128,

623.)

CH. X V

Economic Policy

309

plans : both pointed towards maximum production and collection. In other branches of economy the conflict between short-term and ultimate goals was more striking. For the needs of the moment it was imperative to resort to ‘ maximum exploitation of the relatively limited means of production ’ — even in industry — rather than let them wither for political reasons.1 It was not necessary, however, to restore all branches of Soviet industry, trade, and mining. ‘ It would be utterly erroneous to maintain that we must uniformly pursue the line that all enterprises in the occupied territories are speedily to be put in order and restored. . . . The use of industry may be resumed only in branches where there are shortages.’ 2 The urge for all-out, immediate exploitation led to the utilization of resources and facilities with a minimum of organizational and administrative change. It was simplest to postpone such problems as reprivatization and decentralization, and to avoid issues of organizational revamping — unless they bore directly on productive capacity. Thus it was, above all, the economic-minded among the German planners who urged that after the seizure of the East the status quo be maintained as the line of least resistance and effort. Even before the invasion they prevailed upon Rosenberg to order all economic enterprises in the East to carry on after the German occupation just as they had under Soviet rule.3 The Soviet price scale was to be retained,4 as was most of the administrative machinery on the local level.5 And so, more crucially, was the entire agrarian system of state and collective farms : any change was expected to entail a breakdown, or at least a serious disruption of agricultural production. Promptly, a second argument appeared favouring the maintenance of the status quo in agriculture : the state farm and col­ lective farm system permitted more efficient control and collection 1 Braune Mappe, Teil A , 2nd ed., p. 13. 2 Grüne Mappe, Teil I, ist ed., pp. 3, 24 ; Braune Mappe, Teil A , 2nd ed., pp. 16 -17 . See also [Thomas?] ‘ Aktennotiz’ , May 2, 19 41, Document 2 718 -P S , T M W C , xxxi, 84 ; Colonel Musset, affidavit, Document K örner-473*. Among the branches singled out for special attention even before the invasion began were oil, manganese ore, and transportation. See also Göring’s basic decree, July 27, 1941, Document N I-3 7 7 7 , N M T , xiii, 848 -51, reprinted in Grüne Mappe, Teil II, 3rd ed., p. 16. 3 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 3 ’, April 25, 1941, Document 10 20 -P S*. ‘ The time has not yet come’ , a German magazine stated in November 19 41, ‘ to solve questions of property rights, such as the transfer of enterprises to private owners [even in the Baltic provinces]. Such questions must remain for future clarifica­ tion.’ (Günter Rosenpfianzer, ‘ Zum Wirtschaftsaufbau im Baltikum’ , Deutsche Post aus dem Osten, November 1941, p. 29.) 4 ‘ A decree or announcement of the simplest kind will prohibit under threat of punishment the raising of prices and other remunerations, including wages.’ (Grüne Mappe, Teil I, ist ed., p. 26.) 5 See above, p. 95.

3 IQ

Problems and Practice

P T. I l l

of produce than would a galaxy of individual households to be created on the ruins of the Soviet system. Hence the directives of May 1941 declared bluntly : The premise for [maximum] production and the seizure [Erfassung] of surpluses is the maintenance of large enterprises (collective farms and state farms). . . . A splitting into several million peasant economies would make the exertion of German influence on production utopian. Every effort to dissolve the large [agrarian] units must therefore be fought tooth and nail.1 The economic staffs willed that the collective farms must serve the Germans as they had the Soviet regime. The aspirations of the Soviet peasantry were of no consequence. The Geopolitics of Starvation The defence of the status quo thus became the common denomi­ nator both of the political officials in their dogmatic resistance to popular aspirations in the East, and of the economic-minded who gave absolute priority to immediate exploitation. Here was the point of intersection between the courses pursued by Koch and Goring. For a variety of reasons, Rosenberg, engrossed as he was in his plans of political gerrymander and racial engineering, could not long abide by this outlook. His clash with the economic ex­ ploiters was hastened by their rejection of his policy of national ‘ differentiation’ . Both Rosenberg and the economic staffs agreed in assigning special importance to the Ukraine and the Caucasus. But while Rosenberg urged a privileged political status for these areas, the economic staffs proceeded with their plans for the ruthless utiliza­ tion of Ukrainian grain and Caucasian oil. A policy of special favours clashed with a policy of special burdens. The conflict was never resolved in practice. On paper it was composed by agreeing to the priority of German over indigenous interests and to the disregard of the needs of ‘ deficit’ areas.12 Food consumption in the East was to be reduced so that Germany could obtain the margin. ‘ This fact is the cornerstone on which our measures and economic policy are to be built.’ 1 Document 126 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 146 ; and Document N I-3 7 7 7 , N M T , xiii, 848 -51. 2 This situation provides a counterpart to the political struggle (discussed in Chapter X I V above), where agreement was reached on the privileged status of the Germans at the apex of the new social pyramid and on the lowly status of the Great Russians ; there, too, it was the non-Russian areas, particularly the Ukraine and the Caucasus, which remained in dispute.

CH. X V

Economic Policy

311

As agreed upon by the economic agencies and the Rosenberg office, the plan in substance called for a division of the ‘ East’ into two zones : the forest regions and the black-soil areas. Our task in reincorporating [the Soviet economy] . . . into Europe means tearing asunder the present economic balance within the U.S.S.R. . . . The treatment will have to vary according to the types of areas [Landstriche]. Only those areas will have to be furthered economically and urgently kept in order which can provide significant food and oil reserves for us. The rich southern surplus region, which was almost coterminous with Rosenberg’s Greater Ukraine, rather than feeding the rest of the Soviet Union, ‘ must in the future turn its face to Europe’. As for the ‘ superfluous’ north, except to provide for the troops stationed there (Berlin stated a month before the invasion), ‘ Germany has no interest in preserving the productive power of these regions’ . More than that, the directive ordered that any ‘ shipment of food from the fertile south to the north must be blocked’ . The population of these [northern] regions, especially the urban, will have to look forward to the severest famine. It will be essential to drive the population into Siberia. It was not that the war economists were so preoccupied with the prospect of collecting tons of grain and herds of cattle that they overlooked the humans living in these areas. With striking frankness they weighed the alternatives and concluded : Efforts to save the population from starving to death by bringing in surplus food from the black-soil region [to the northern areas] can be made only at the expense of feeding Europe. They undermine Germany’s ability to hold out in the war and to withstand the blockade [imposed by Britain]. There must be absolute clarity on this point. [From this fact] . . . there follows forcibly the extinction of industry as well as of a large percentage of the human beings in the hitherto deficit areas [of Russia].1 The courses suggested by economic and political extremism proved to be identical. Rosenberg went along with the anti-Muscovite parts of this project. Yet the ‘ Brown Camel’ plan drawn up under his direction 1 Document 126 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 138-56 ; Grüne Mappe, Teil /, ist ed., p. 3 ; Teil //, 3rd ed., p. 16 ; Teil A y 2nd ed., pp. 14 ff. See also Documents 10 17 PS, T M W C , xxvi, 548, and Probleme des Ostraumes, p. 34. The directive, amplified by instructions for every area, had ‘ received the approval of the highest authorities, since it is also in unison with the political tendencies [to be promoted with the aim of] pushing back the Great Russians. . . .’

3 12

Problems and Practice

I’T. 11

expounded a point of view slightly different from that contained in the parallel ‘ Green Jackass’ of the war economists. Rosenberg’s dilemma stemmed from the priority which he assigned to political goals, while still recognizing the necessity of economic exploitation. Once again he was caught between the advocates of indiscriminate confiscation and the few spokesmen for ‘ enlightened self-interest’ , who argued behind the scenes that the first job was to satisfy the demands of the Soviet population — particularly the peasantry. Unable to support both, he proceeded to propound the impossible. Though fully cognizant of the unpopularity of the Soviet collective farm system, he insisted that ‘ the agricultural enterprises must remain intact, and the peasant must willingly offer his collaboration’. 1 German plans — and in this deficiency Rosenberg’s office was by no means alone among the galaxy of agencies in Berlin — failed to answer the elementary question of how an unwilling peasant could be made to do what he did not like. If the collective farm system (as most German experts agreed) required compulsion to function, it was obvious that it would also take force to maintain it or to institute any other system which rode roughshod over the peasants. The alternative was to introduce incentives which would persuade the rural population in the East to work devotedly and diligently in their own interest. Given the general orientation of the German leadership, however, it is hardly surprising that, initially, little attention was paid to this possible course — or, more broadly, to the exploitation of tensions in Soviet society. There was no effort to work on vulnerable spots in the economic and social fabric of Soviet labour. Even more strikingly, the peasantry — truly an Achilles’ heel in the Soviet system — was eschewed as a source of vulnerability. It was inevitable that the collective farmer would judge any alternative to the Soviet system against the background of his pre-war grievances. Given the German outlook in 1941, one could predict that, unless a radical change occurred in German agrarian policy, the peasant would find it sadly wanting. Inescapably, National Socialist tenets on agriculture permeated German thinking on future rural life in the East.2 These concepts, however, had been formulated against the background of, and were designed to apply specifically to, the German situation. Such notions as the glorification of the hereditary German farm — the Erbhof — and the weird myths of Bint und Boden were utterly 1 Braune Mappe> Teil /, ist ed., pp. 28-9. 2 For the Nazi view of agriculture, see R. Walther Darre, Urn Blut und Boden (Munich : F. Eher, 1940), and the analyses in Franz L . Neumann, Behemoth (New York : Oxford University Press, 1944), and Otto Nathan, The N a zi Economic System (Durham : Duke University Press, 1944), ch. iv.

CH. X V

Economic Policy

313

inapplicable to the Eastern peasantry, for whom a dilferent code of ethics and behaviour was to prevail. The earliest public pronounce­ ments on agriculture after the invasion provided the new rationale. The Russian, it was claimed, was incapable of effectively organizing his environment; this was as true of agriculture as of political and military affairs. ‘ Organically’, Berlin asserted, the Russian was a mass-being, a ‘ collectivist’. Thus one of Germany’s tasks was to ‘ help’ restore the Russian to his ‘ true self’ . The hypocrisy of the concept is well illustrated in the conclusions drawn from this view : As the old order of the mir [village commune] and artet [co-operative] is resurrected, we shall also witness the revival of . . . the concept of collective responsibility.1 Underneath this thin veneer, German self-interest remained the genuine motive. Its impact w'as especially strong because agrarian policy was being formulated by a power keenly aware of its dwindling resources. However, grain was neither the sole nor the supreme German target. Others competed with it — all ‘ logical’ in them­ selves and, within Nazi premises, defensible, but impossible to reconcile with each other. Notably, three sets of demands were bound to clash : (1) to procure the greatest amount of food from the East; (2) to secure the greatest possible labour force from the East; (3) to win the good-will and co-operation of the Eastern peasantry. The third of these — never an end in itself — was initially not even recognized as a necessity of German rule. The second, likewise, loomed important only after the initial phase of the war had failed to achieve the destruction of the foe. Only the first w^s influential from beginning to end. The Economic Organization An intricate network of agencies and offices was established in the occupied East for the exploitation and control of the economy. Subject to multiple authorities, conflicting jurisdictions, and contra­ dictory directives, the formal and actual functions in the economic field remained mystifying even to those appointed to administer the system.12 1 Werner Dietz>. ‘ Osteuropa’, Nationale Wirtschaftsordnung und Grossraum­ wirtschaft [Berlin], 1941, no. 7-9 (July-September), p. 92. 2 The theory and practice of German economic organization and administration in occupied Russia still await monographic treatment. For convenient, if some­ what incomplete and inexact, summaries, see United States, Civil Affairs Handbook — Occupied Europe, vol. 2J (Washington^: Government Printing Office, 1944),

3H

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

On the higher levels, the conflicts stemmed in part from the parallel planning activities of several distinct agencies, notably the Four-Year Plan, the Armed Forces, and the political arm. The actual director of Göring’s Four-Year Plan, Paul Körner, also became chief of the small policy-making body that was to lay down the broad outlines of economic goals and methods for the East, the socalled Wirtschaftsführungsstab Ost [WiFStab Ost], or Economic Executive Staff East. Though represented on the latter, the O KW ’s Office for Armament Economy [Wirtschafts- und Rüstungs-Amt, WiRü Amt] under General Georg Thomas independently conducted most of its planning for economic exploitation.1 For all practical purposes, the Rosenberg office was from the start excluded from decision-making in the economic sphere. Though Rosenberg had, even before the invasion, made tortuous efforts to prevent Hitler from delegating economic authority to Goring, his efforts failed completely. When the Führer named Rosenberg Minister for the Occupied East, he also appointed Goring, as head of the Four-Year Plan, in charge of the Eastern economy.2 Under the Reich Marshal, Paul Körner wielded much of the actual authority, sharing Göring’s narrow economic orientation. General Thomas, on the other hand, represented a more curious phenomenon. At one time pro-Russian, he had gone to the Soviet Union in 1933 and had, by his own confession, been ‘ deeply im­ pressed’. From 1934 on> had worked with the Nazis, had later clashed with them, and finally associated himself with the antiHitler forces in the Army to the point of being vaguely implicated in the July 20, 1944, attack on the Führer. His former pro-Russian views and his clashes with the Nazi leadership, however, did not pp. 10 -13 ; Brandt, op. cit. ch. vi ; also the Grüne and Braune Mappeny and Docu­ ments 4 72-P S , 1024-P S, and 115 7 -P S . Valuable but scattered information is contained in the presentations and arguments in the Krupp trial and especially the so-called ‘ Ministries T ria l’ (Case X I) before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal. 1 For the development of Thom as’s staff for the East in 1 940-1 (under the code-name ‘ Oldenburg’), and economic planning, see above, pp. 38-40 ; Thom as’s own account, ‘ Grundlagen für eine Geschichte der deutschen Wehr- und Rüstungs­ wirtschaft’ , M S , Document 2 3 5 3 -P S * (excerpts in T M W C , xxx, 260-80) ; Docu­ ments i2 9 4 -P S #, 115 7 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 32-8 ; 13 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 169-71 ; 1456 -P S , N M T , xii, 1266 ; and Körner, testimony, N M T , xii, 1 3 1 7 - 2 1 . The basic order establishing the Wirtschaftsstab organization with its various sub­ divisions is O KH /GenStdH /Gen.Q u., Abt.Kr.Verw . [Wagner], ‘ Wirtschafts­ organisation’ , M ay 14, 19 4 1, Document N O K W -3 3 3 5 * . 2 See above, p. 24 ; and Lammers to Keitel, M ay 20, 1941, with enclosure of draft decree on Göring’s jurisdiction and Rosenberg’s counter proposal, Docu­ ment 118 8 -P S , N M T , xiii, 1273-4 . Rosenberg saved face by receiving the authority to ‘ co-ordinate’ the economic efforts of all agencies involved, and by having the heads of sections in the Wirtschaftsstab hold analogous positions in personal union in his Ministry.

CH. X V

Economic Policy

315

‘ prevent him from organizing, with that extreme efficiency of which the German General Staff was capable, the economic exploitation of the Nazi invasion of R ussia'.1 Many of the most calculated, roldly cruel statements of economic aims cited earlier in this chapter came from his pen. The central agency in charge of the Eastern economy, operating formally under Körner’s WiFStab Ost, was the Wirtschaftsstab Ost [WiStab Ost], or Economic Staff East. This was a complete hybrid whose limits of authority remained ill-defined. It included re­ presentatives of the Four-Year Plan, the Quartermaster-General’s Office of the OKH, the Rosenberg Ministry, the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, and the Ministry of Economics. Several of its major sections were headed by men who simultaneously officiated in the Rosenberg Ministry and in the Four-Year Plan, and in this manner became little tsars in their own branches. Ministerial­ direktor Hans-Joachim Riecke, for instance, was in effect the boss of Eastern agriculture as an official in the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, head of the agriculture section in the Economic Staff East, and chief of the department for agriculture in the Ostministerium.12 The organization in the field consisted of Economic Inspectorates [Wirtschafts-Inspektion, or Wiln] — one for each Army Group Rear Area (North, Centre, South, and later Caucasus) and for each of the two Reich Commissariats (Ostland and Ukraine).3 In the operational areas of the armies, closer to the front lines, their place was taken by the Army Economy Chiefs [Armee-Wirtschaftsführer, or AWiFü], operationally under Army jurisdiction but technically subordinate to the Wirtschaftsstab edifice. The next lower level — operating in an area roughly equivalent to one or two Soviet oblasts — was the so-called Economic Command [Wirtschafts-Kommando, or WiKdo], which had a variety of German and indigenous staffs under its control. The channels of command and the division of jurisdiction among the economic agencies (as well as their relations with military, civilian, and police organs) were altered repeatedly in the course of the war. Conflicts between the economic staffs and the administrative 1 John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power (New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1953), p. 4 3 2 ; and Georg Thomas, 4Gedanken und Ereignisse’ , Schweizer Monatshefte (Zürich), xxv, no. 9 (December 1945), 537-59 , where he studiously avoids discussing his role in the utilization of Soviet economic resources. 2 See Brandt, op. cit. pp. 7 3-4 ; also chart, p. 3 18 below. 3 In the areas of civil government, they were renamed Rüstungs-Inspektion [Rüln], or Armament Inspectorate, and later Wehrwirtschafts-Inspektion [W W iln], or W ar Economy Inspectorate.

3j6

Problems and Practice

pr. u i

machinery were frequent; in the course of time, the subordin­ ates of the Wirtschaftsstab clashed with the SS and the offices for labour recruitment. Top-level orders were issued not only by the Wirtschaftsstab itself but also by the Four-Year Plan, the Ostministerium, the Quartermaster-General, and after September 1942 also by each of the armies in the field — often with significant differences in emphasis and intent. Finally, there was considerable friction between such top per­ sonalities as Thomas, Keitel, Goring, and Albert Speer, the Reich Minister for Armanent, who gained influence and power as the war progressed, largely at the expense of the Army and the Four-Year Plan. Thomas, as head of the WiRü Amt of the OKW, opposed the policies of General Schubert, who headed the Wirtschaftsstab Ost, because of his ‘ excessive preoccupation with theoretical ideas for the future ’ rather than with maximum exploitation for the present; as a result, Schubert was relieved in July 1942. After a brief inter­ lude, when Thomas himself headed the Economic Staff, General Stapf became its chief. By then the struggle between the Army’s economic agencies and Speer’s civilian ministry had reached a crisis; the WiRü Amt was broken up and part of it absorbed by Speer. Finally, in February 1943, General Thomas resigned.1 This left Speer, on the one hand, and the various bodies sponsored by the Four-Year Plan, on the other, as victors in the inter-departmental jungle warfare. The economic agencies had gradually succeeded in wrenching control from both the Rosenberg Ministry and the military. The demands imposed by the prolongation of war had catapulted the economic spokesmen to a position of authority exceeding that of administrators and soldiers.

A special network of German officials was required to supervise agricultural activity in the East. The great extent of the agrarian areas and the priority assigned to the collection of produce accounted for the growth of this apparatus. Each of the economic inspectorates had its agricultural section, parallele^ by an agricultural section in each of the territorial administrations. Likewise, the economic commands as well as the district commissariats and field kommandaturas had their sections for agriculture. At the bottom of 1 For Thom as’s own account of the struggle, see Document 2 3 5 3 -P S *, pp. 426-44, 5 15 ff. ; see also Körner’s and Pleiger’s testimony and the prosecution brief in Case X I , excerpts published in N M T , xiii ; and Chapter X V I I I below. By m id-1943 Speer had won control over virtually all German production. The name of his Ministry was then changed from Arms and Munitions to Armament and W ar Production. Thomas was succeeded by Major-General Kurt Waeger.

CH. X V

Economic Policy

317

this complex pyramid was the Landwirtschaftsführer, the ‘ agri­ cultural leader’ who represented German interests on the local level and supervised the peasants’ work. Often the only German official on the spot, he became a man of exceptional importance in day-today dealings between conqueror and conquered. It was recognized that ‘ in view of the size of the area and the limited availability of German experts, the administration of agri­ culture must use the indigenous apparatus to a certain extent’. At the same time, the war economists maintained from the start that productivity and exploitation would not be assured without a sizeable German administrative apparatus.1 While the civilian administration sought to reduce the functions of economic officialdom, Goring decreed that . . . it is essential that in agriculture in the occupied territories, and especially in the surplus areas, as many German leaders as possible be committed and that they try to attain the highest possible production and assure the flow of the products wherever they are most needed in the interests of the German war economy.2 The area to be controlled was so immense that, in spite of the flood of directives, the La-Führer (as they were known) were, more often than not, left to their own devices. Conditions varied consider­ ably from area to area and often from village to village, and finding solutions to problems required considerable ingenuity on their part. If, on the one hand, they were not consulted about broad policy decisions in agriculture, their relative independence was written into law — and generally welcomed by them. Thus there emerged the ‘ corps’ of La-Führer, some 14,000 strong.3 They were a varied lot, including a fair number of incompetent, corrupt, and ignorant officials. German as well as refugee descriptions frequently poim out that many of them, as the sole representatives of the Herrenvolk for miles and miles, looked upon their bailiwicks as private estates. If at times this was conducive to arousing a sincere interest in their « 1 Braune Mappe, Teil A> 2nd ed., p. 9. 2 Document N I-3 7 7 7 , N M T , xiii, 848-51. 3 Brandt, op. cit. p. 82 ; W iStab Ost I/zbV, ‘ Vom Chef W iStab Ost am 23.2.44 genehmigte Gliederung für die Materialsammlung zur Geschichte des W iStab Ost* [hereafter cited as ‘ Materialsammlung *], Document 6 3 -E C #, pp. 148, 163. See also Deutsche Volkswirtschaft (Berlin), xii (July 1943), 6 11 ; Document N O 14 8 1* . The initial instructions to the La-Führer read : This task requires the greatest initiative arid willingness to work. . . . Men who do not possess such initiative are unfit for the job and should be replaced as soon as possible. . . . The men must understand that they are dependent on themselves and that in the vast spaces they cannot wait for written or telephone orders from above. (Document 126 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 155.)

G.R.R.— Y

1 3 . G ER M A N C O N TR O L OF T H E E A S T E R N ECO N O M Y (Simplified) Central

Hitler

Agencies

I

FO O D & A G R . M I N I S T R Y (Backe)

F O U R - Y E A R P L A N [VP] (Coring/ Körner)

OKW (Keitel) ------- 1----------

O ST M IN IST ER IU M (Rosen be rg) • AGR £ Riecke)

ECON. M IN IS T R Y (Funk)

W IR TSC H A F T S F Ü H R U N G S S T A B O ST [M/iFStab Ost] (Körner)

WiRü Amt (Thomas) OKH

W I R T S C H A F T S S T A B O S T [WiStab Ost] (Schubert) ! AGR (Riecke) *

GenQu (Wagner)

Army

Rear

Administration

______ I___ Reich Commissariats

W IR T SC H A FT SIN SPEK T IO N

Army Group Hq [North, Centre, South]

Operational

(Lohse, Koch)

[Wiln] ' AGR

Army Group Rear Area

Army

Civilian

Areas

Areas

__ Army Hq

X

Corps and Divisional Hq

ARM EE -W IR T SC H A FT S FÜHRER [AWiFü] A G R --»

- W IR T SC H A FT S-K O M M A N D O

A . Kommandaturas

-

f W iK ^ n l

• AGR •

[F K s and OKsl Kreiswirtschaftsführei r 1 1 In civilian areas, later R ü stu n g * -ln sp e k tio n [R u in ] and W e h r w ir ts c h a f t* - 1n*pektion f W W i t n l

•

AGR

Landwirtschaftsführer I» A C i R -|

- A g ricu ltu ral S r c n o n

oh

.

xv

Economic Policy

319

work, more often it led to arbitrary rule and opened the door to unchecked abuse. Much depended on the individual officers. With some striking exceptions, their prestige in the eyes of the population was low. This was particularly true where the ‘ expert ’ was a German peasant who, without special training, was transplanted from his little Bauernhof in Thuringia or Bavaria to the huge collective farms of the Ukraine. Ignorant of the language, bewildered by the manifold problems of mechanization, crop rotation, communal work, and partisan warfare, the La-Fiihrer provoked horror, ridicule, or indignation from the local peasantry. Even German observers recognized that ‘ the suitability of the La-Führer for their difficult tasks varies greatly. On the whole, it may be said that the right people for the job were lacking.’ 1 As in other areas of German rule in the East, agriculture was a combination of goals inimical to the local population, methods unsuited to establish their popularity or acceptance, and personnel unable to rescue what remained to be salvaged. 1 O K W /W iR ü Amt, ‘ Reisebericht über Besuche im Raum der Heeresgruppe S ü d ’ [November 1941], W i/ID .78*, C R S ; interviews G -2, G -9. The typical area of one ‘ agricultural leader* was described as covering 80,000 hectares and 25,000 people. (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 5, 1942.)

C H A P T E R XVI

GERM ANY AND

EASTERN

AGRICULTURE:

I

T he promise to dissolve the collective farms is the most effective means of propaganda.— Foreign Office, memorandum, July 1941 T he structure of the collective farms must not be tampered with.— Economic Staff East, directive, June 1941

The Kolkhoz Skein A n y government in Russia is bound to face the same agricultural problems which have harassed the Soviet regime itself — the channelling of rural discontent, and the ways and means of en­ couraging production and obtaining food from the peasantry. The system of agrarian relations devised by the Soviet government had proved to be strikingly unsatisfactory. Economically, the agri­ cultural potential of the areas overrun by the Germans was tremen­ dous.1 Yet the increase in yield, in spite of frantic and at times drastic Soviet measures, had been meagre. Politically, the rural population included the most sizeable and perhaps the most stubborn groups of resisters to Soviet policy. Suffice it to point to the forcible collectivization of agriculture, which a decade earlier had revolu­ tionized the countryside at the price of millions of lives; and the continued hostility to many aspects of collective farming, which persisted down to the outbreak of war. Planned deliveries and work norms, compulsory work on ‘ collective’ land, unproductive bureau­ cratic overhead, confiscation of private inventory and produce, arrests and purges — these and more were the grievances of the Soviet peasant.2 1 According to Soviet figures, the German-occupied areas before the war had over 100,000 collective farms and 3000 M T S (Machine-Tractor Stations), con­ tained more than 40 per cent of all cultivated acreage of the U .S .S .R ., and accounted for about 45 per cent of all Soviet livestock. (Nicholas A. Voznesenskii, Soviet Economy During the Second World War [New York : International Publishers, 1949], P- 129 ; K. Abrosenko, O sotsialisticheskom perevospitanii kresVianstva [Moscow : Gospolitizdat, 1949], p. 104.) It must be borne in mind, however, that these figures also cover areas held only briefly by the Germans. 2 T he collective farm is generally recognized as a major source of discontent within the Soviet system. The empirical evidence on peasant attitudes and behaviour under the German occupation fully supports this view, as does the material gathered by the Harvard University Refugee Interview Project. For a survey of Soviet agriculture, see Naum Jasny, The Socialized Agriculture of the U .S .S .R . (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1949), and Lazar Volin, A Survey 320

cH. x v i

Germany and Eastern Agriculture : I

321

The alternatives which Germany faced in dealing with the Soviet collective farm — the kolkhoz — well illustrate the com­ plexity of the problem. A policy of laissez-faire could imply either recognition of popular sovereignty, with the Germans refraining from imposing a new agrarian order — a contingency unthinkable under Nazi rule — or else indifference towards the agrarian question — a prospect equally unlikely because of the German need for grain. A second possible course, the maintenance of the status quo as a convenient means of colonial exploitation, was the formula advanced by many German officials on grounds of convenience or principle, oblivious to the political implications of no-reform for the morale (and indirectly, for productivity) in the occupied areas. A third alternative was planned change, providing for the orderly, complete or partial, dissolution of the collective farms, recognizing that this was what most peasants wanted and that this, in the long run, was likely to provide a greater incentive to productivity and deliveries to the state than could compulsion and terror.1 Even if the new authorities had wished to embark on some form of ‘ reprivatization’ in agriculture, there remained the difficult question of what model of agrarian relations would take the place of the kolkhoz. Could the precise mould be left to the population, or should a uniform plan be evolved and enforced ? How fast was ‘ decollectivization’ to proceed and how far could it go? To capi­ talize on the widespread peasant demand for change, political considerations militated in favour of the speediest possible partition of the collectivized land. Yet experience showed that a drastic change in agricultural organization was likely to produce a severe decline in production and such a disruption of deliveries which might bring about famine and a frustration of the new regime’s political and military endeavours. The dilemma was real: to sanction what many peasants wanted meant jeopardizing the grain supply for Army and c ity ; to preserve the kolkhoz and exact the necessary food meant alienating the rural folk. of Soviet Russian Agriculture (Washington : Department of Agriculture, 19 51). On the rural population as a source of tension, see also Merle Fainsod, How Russia Is Ruled (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1953), ch. xvi. 1 Theoretically, another alternative was the restoration of pre-Soviet landowners, ignoring the changes wrought in the preceding generation. T he German decision to bar former owners coincided with the attitudes of the Soviet rural population, which, all the evidence indicates, feared a return of the hated pre­ revolutionary pomeshchik. German propaganda sought to dispel Soviet leaflet and rumour efforts predicting German re-establishment of the landowners, by pro­ claiming th at4a return to reaction and the age of the landlords is out of the question \ {Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., p. 183. See also Probleme des Ostraumes [Berlin : RM fdbO., 1942], pp. 35-6 ; and 4Materialsammlung*, p. 15 1.)

322

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

The objective intricacy of these questions must not be under­ estimated. The actual difficulties, however, were immensely com­ pounded by the specific approach adopted by the German authorities, who shaped their goals without reference to peasant desiderata. As on other crucial problems, Berlin was also divided in this area. Behind the scenes, a battle raged over the fate of the Soviet kolkhoz. The position of the extreme ‘ exploiters’ was epitomized by Goring, who had formal responsibility for the utilization of Eastern resources. His first summary decree on economic policy in the East ordered that to avoid, as far as possible, halts in production and interruptions in the delivery of agricultural products, the present kolkhoz system . . . will have to be maintained. The only ‘ modification’ he allowed was the re-naming of the col­ lective into a ‘ community farm’ [Gemeindehof; in Russian, obshchii dvor], purely to get rid of the emotion-laden term, kolkhoz.1 Göring’s general attitude towards the East — his insistence on maximum exploitation and advocacy of the status quo — provided a meeting ground between him, as an exponent of economic extremism, and Erich Koch, the extremist in politics. State Secretary (later Minister of Agriculture) Herbert Backe promptly emerged as the third member of the triumvirate. He insisted on the retention of collective farms as a matter not only of utility but also of principle. Backe was reported to have remarked on one occasion that if the Soviets had not established collective farms, the Germans would have had to invent them.2 Another ally in the pro-kolkhoz grouping was the SS. While others endorsed the collectives to prevent disruption in production 1 Goring, decree, Ju ly 27, 19 4 1, Document N I-3 7 7 7 , N M T , xiii, 849. T w o days later he replied to a set of questions submitted to him by Thom as’s W iRü Am t by stating that, while in principle Nazi Germany opposed collectivism, ‘ the time of transformation has not yet come’ . Goring ‘ specifically refused to carry out a new partition of land at this time or to let the communes carry it out’ . (O K W / W iRü Am t/VO beim Reichsmarschall [Nagel] to Thomas, Ju ly 29, 19 4 1, W i/ID .93b*, C R S .) The adopted changes had been drafted by Riecke’s staff in June 1941 and were released in somewhat revised form in mid-August. (W iFStab Ost and O K W /W iR ü Am t, ‘ Richtlinien zur Behandlung der Kollektivfrage’, August 15, 19 4 1, W i/ID .57*, C R S .) 2 On Backe, see above, pp. 39-40 ; Herbert Backe, Um die Nahrungsfreiheit Europas (Leipzig : Goldmann, 19 4 1, 1942), pp. 147 f f . ; interviews G -2, G -8, G - 1 0 ; Riecke, cited in Jürgen Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen (Stuttgart : Steingrüben-Verlag, 1953), p. 35 ; Karl Brandt et al., Management of Agriculture and Food in the German-Occupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1953), pp. 57-8.

CH. xvi

Germany and Eastern Agriculture: 1

323

and to facilitate German control over large units, the SS was among those who introduced an additional argument: the kolkhozes were better suited to the Russians’ ‘ intrinsic character’ and prevented their (politically undesirable) self-assertion, which a re-establishment of private agriculture might touch off. Moreover, the SS was caring for its own interests : it planned to take over some farms as nuclei for its future settlements in the East.1 The prerogatives of the SS were formalized in a directive of Riecke which recognized Himmler’s ‘ extensive authority to issue decrees in the domain of peasant settlement’, especially as it pertained to long-range Germanization plans.12 Much to Rosenberg’s chagrin, the SS thus gained another foothold in the East. In early 1942 the economic agencies signed an accord with the SS, stipulating that the strong-points of the SS and Police in the occupied Russian regions are to be assigned agricultural enterprises in the vicinity, for the purpose of providing them with perishable foods like milk, butter, vegetables, and fruits.3 This, the SS hoped, was the beginning of the SS estates in the East, where Himmler’s elite expected to play the role of a sui generis pioneer aristocracy. Small wonder that it saw no point in compli­ cating its own expanding network by dividing land, cattle, and machinery among millions of individual kolkhoz hands. Although there is no evidence that he was consulted specifically on this problem, Hitler’s views fully supported the pro-kolkhoz elements. In a private discussion on Eastern agriculture soon after the invasion began, he opined that it would be best to maintain large units of production. Not only did they make intensive cultivation and exploitation possible, but there was no alternative, ‘ since the real Russian intelligentsia must be considered destroyed, and the people for the most part have been used to living and being treated 1 For a short time, this plan steered Himmler in a different direction. In the spring of 1941, the Georgian-born director of the SS Wannsee-Institut, Michael Akhmeteli (who wrote under the pseudonym of Konstantin Michael), submitted a detailed memorandum advocating the partition of collective farms and the substitu­ tion of tightly controlled state farms, which the S S could easily take over. At that moment, Himmler rashly endorsed the project, evidently on the basis of inadequate knowledge or reflection. He promptly retracted, and the SS soon emerged as a staunch opponent of abolishing the kolkhozes. (Interviews G -3 1, H-545. Akhmeteli*s original plan is not available, but it is discussed in detail in his later report, ‘ Stellungnahme zur neuen Agrarordnung* [Berlin : WannseeInstitut, 1942], Lib. 25*, CRS.) 2 WiStab Ost, directive, November 10, 1941, Grüne M a p p e , T eil I I , 3rd ed., pp. 183-4. 3 Oswald Pohl and Herbert Backe, ‘ Abkommen*, January 10, 1942, ibid . pp. 185-6.

324

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

like animals’.1 Though assuming that the natives would live better than heretofore, he was firm in opposing the abolition of the col­ lectives, exclaiming: ‘ What stupidity it would be on our part to proceed to a distribution of land ! ’ 2 At the opposite pole were those who consistently advocated an anti-kolkhoz stand as a pillar of German policy. This group in­ cluded many who had had first-hand contact with Soviet life. Bräutigam, a former consular official and specialist in Soviet agri­ culture, a typical representative of this group, in a memorandum written before the invasion, advocated dissolving the collectives but was promptly rebuffed by the Four-Year Plan.3 Similar views were held by individuals in the Abwehr and the Foreign Office.4 As in other problems of Ostpolitik, some of the diplomats, intelligence officers, and scholars displayed a measure of realism and political sensitivity. By contrast, the Army, non-dogmatic though it was, and particularly the OKW, refrained from endorsing the anti-kolkhoz position. Its own self-interest commanded special attention to the feeding of troops in the E a st; and the WiRü Amt was after all the economic branch of the High Command. Though fully aware of the peasants’ hostility towards the collective farms, the OKW directed: . . . The partition of land and the splitting of collective enterprises are at first out of the question, even though they are intended for a later moment. An immediate change in the form of economic management would necessarily increase the havoc wrought by the disruptions caused by war.5 Though this argument differed somewhat from the obstinacy of the Nazi ‘ theorists’ , in practice both bore in the same direction. Rosenberg, as usual, was caught in the middle. In his first pronouncement on the subject, the famous ‘ Memorandum No. i ’ , he spoke of agricultural surpluses as a matter of life-and-death for the Reich and noted : 1 Generalkommissar Schmidt [Report on conference with Hitler and SeyssInquart], September 26, 1941, Document N G -3 5 13 * . 2 H T T , p. 34. 3 Bräutigam refers to it in his later memorandum (Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 335-6) ; also interview G -11 . 4 Three experts on Soviet affairs: Otto Schiller, a leading specialist ; Theodor Oberländer, then professor of economics ; and Professor Werner Markert, secretary of the Osteuropa society, in May 1941 prepared a plan for future agrarian policy at the request of General Lahousen, of the Abwehr. Its authors assert that their project advocated step-by-step dissolution of collective farms. Strictly speaking, this was none of the Abwehr’s business, and their advice went unheeded. (Inter­ views G -2, G - io .) 5 OKW/WPr, ‘ Weisungen für die Handhabung der Propaganda im Falle “ Barbarossa” ’, June [9,] 1941, Document 026-C, T M W C , xxxiv, 193.

CH. xvi

Germany and Eastern Agriculture: I

325

Spontaneous action on the part of the utterly uneducated rural popula­ tion, and possibly a spontaneous dissolution of kolkhozes by them, could lead to incalculable material damage.1 A month later Rosenberg was still talking out of both sides of his mouth. The first German orders, he insisted, would have ‘ all . . . peasants continue working as heretofore’, so that eventually the Reich, ‘ after acquainting itself with the situation’ , might ‘ perhaps’ institute a change. In substance, his formula amounted to a com­ promise : first seize, then determine whether or not a reform was required. ‘ For well-known economic reasons, the dissolution of collective farms is, for the time being, out of the question ’ ; however, ‘ after the stabilization of the [German] administration, a loosening might be initiated’ .12 Thus Germany began its occupation of the Soviet Union with one group of officials insisting on the maintenance of collective farms, and with another keenly aware of the economic and political pitfalls of such a course, but utterly unable to make their views prevail. Agrarian Reform : Pro and Con During the first weeks of the campaign, the German armies passed through areas which had been annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939-40 and hence had experienced only partial collectivization. Thus it was not until August that the kolkhoz issue again erupted in Berlin. Already the first and fragmentary messages which reached the Reich agreed that for most collective farmers who had remained under the Germans the fate of the kolkhozes was the crucial problem. German reporting was surprisingly unanimous on this score. Even the SD Einsatzgruppen wired that one finds a general desire among the kolkhoz farmers to own their land in the future. In certain cases attempts have already been made in an arbitrary manner to divide land and cattle for individual ownership. . . . It would be desirable, the Einsatzgruppen concluded on the basis of their early contacts with the peasantry, . . . to give the peasants one or two hectares of land for their own use, to terminate the collective ownership of livestock, and transfer it to the 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. i A p r i l 2, 1941, Document 1017-PS, T M W C , xxvi, 553. 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Allgemeine Instruktion für alle Reichskommissare in den besetzten Ostgebieten’, May 8, 1941, Document 1030-PS, T M W C , xxvi, 578 ; and Dienststelle Rosenberg, ‘ Allgemeine Richtlinien für die politische und wirt­ schaftliche Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’, June 25, 1941, Document 1037P S #. See also above, p. 310.

326

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

kolkhoz population, and to promise the complete dissolution of the collectives later on. . . .' The Army likewise reported overwhelming resentment against the collective farms. ‘ The population’, a High Command report stated, ‘ will reject everyone who appears to them to be an [advocate] of the collective farm system.’ And the Foreign Office’s RusslandGremium, which included some top-notch German experts on the Soviet Union, bluntly told its superiors : It is no accident that all reports of Foreign Office representatives with Army Headquarters stress that the great mass of the Soviet population is interested exclusively in the question of collective system vs. private ownership, and therefore the promise to dissolve the collective farm system represents the most potent propaganda theme.12 As Bräutigam remarked in a subsequent review of the situation, even the most stubborn theorists in the Four-Year Plan had to recognize ‘ that the impetuous urge of the entire peasant population in favour of a dissolution of the collectives had to be taken account of, if only in the interests of securing [the maximum] yield’.3 Even the German press, which generally refrained from discussing popular aspirations, occasionally recognized that the peasants ‘ have a profound aversion for the kolkhoz economy’. The official Völ­ kischer Beobachter was most outspoken in admitting that in com­ parison with other issues the main problem was and remains agriculture. . . . The rural population had widely believed that with the coming of the German occupation the kolkhoz system would immediately be abolished.+ This empirical evidence provided an impetus to re-examine the kolkhoz question in Berlin. The earlier advocates of decollecti­ vization were now joined by a variety of Army officers and agri­ cultural experts — often the rank-and-file, who had encountered the practical problems, rather than the higher echelons, who were engrossed in theories and lost in ‘ broader vistas’.5 The situation 1 Einsatzgruppen Reports, nos. 5 and 15 (July 13 and 23, 1941)*. 2 OKH, report, August 24, 1941, cited in Wallace Carroll, 4It Takes a Russian To Beat a Russian*, L ife (Chicago), December 19, 1949, p. 81 ; Auswärtiges Amt, Russland-Gremium, ‘ Stellungnahme der auf “ Westfalen,, versammelten Mit­ glieder . . . zur Frage der Propaganda betr. Aufhebung des Kollektivsystems *, August 26, 1941, Document N G-4648*. 3 Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 335. 4 Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), December 1941, p. 5 ; Gustav FochlerHauke, ‘ Die ersten Wiederaufbaumassnahmen’, V B -M , November 7, 1941. 5 Interviews G -2, G -3 ; Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 335-6 ; [Herwarth,] ‘ Deutschland und die ukrainische Frage, 19 4 1-19 4 5 ’ , M S #, pp. 14-15.

on. xvi

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was well described in a subsequent report of the agricultural staff of Economic Inspectorate Centre : At the beginning of its activity the agrarian policy of the Main Section for Agriculture was unmistakably determined by the various well-known directives: the kolkhozes were to be maintained. . . . As soon as the [Inspectorate] arrived, the necessity of an early change became apparent. The kolkhoz system was hated by the entire Russian peasantry. . . . As early as August [1941] the Main Section for Agriculture faced the question of whether it was at all possible to maintain the kolkhoz system over the passive opposition of the peasantry.1 Such a state of affairs encouraged those hitherto ineffectual voices who were agitating for a radical reform. Above all, it furthered the cause of those who advocated minor ‘ concessions’ to the Soviet peasantry without endangering German goals and programmes. Of these early concessions, one called for abolishing the term ‘ kolkhoz ’ — a paper reform which had been fully supported by Goring even before the invasion. A second concession concerned the individual garden plots of the households making up the collective farm. Under Soviet rule these small plots — between | and 1 hectare in size 123— had been of disproportionately high yield because the personal profit and satis­ faction which the individual kolkhoz member derived from working his own land acted as incentives to intense cultivation, and had often been vital in providing food for his family’s survival. Now, the household plots were to become the tax-exempt property of the individual household and to be enlarged up to double their previous size, at the expense of kolkhoz land. This decision, agreed upon by Thomas’s and Riecke’s staffs and issued on August 18, 1941, consti­ tuted a psychological warfare effort to secure some peasant support for the Germans without affecting the nature of the collective farm system as such, or endangering German plans for maximizing cultivation and collection. A third concession, the promise of unlimited private cattlebreeding (separate from the collective farm livestock), was of mere nominal value until or unless the individual peasant had cattle to start with and fodder to support it. Moreover, the peasants were required to return to the commune all kolkhoz cattle appropriated during the ‘ interregnum’ .1 1 Wiln Mitte, Chefgruppe La, 4Jahresbericht’, June 30, 1942, Wi/ID 2.70 *, CR S, p. 19. 2 One hectare equals 2 471 acres. 3 Riecke, ‘ Stellungnahme gegenüber bäuerlichen Anfragen’ [June 2 1, 1 9 4 1]* ; Dr. Otto Schiller, letter to author, April 25, 1953 ; WiFStab Ost and OKW/ WiRü Amt, ‘ Richtlinien zur Behandlung der Kollektivfrage’, August 15, 19 41,

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The chief opponent of these small reforms was and remained Backe. When the representatives of partial, piecemeal change (as typified by Rosenberg’s Ministry) argued with him, he rebuffed them soundly.1 He was also challenged by the collegium of experts assembled in the Foreign Office’s Russland-Gremium. Its memo­ randum well summarizes the ensuing dispute — the position taken by the Gremium and the hostility it encountered. The Russland-Gremium . . . is of the unanimous opinion that German propaganda destined for the Soviet hinterland and the Red Army must place in the forefront the elimination of the collective system — which has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the rural population of the U.S.S.R. — and the reintroduction of private farming.. .. The group recognized that immediate and chaotic dissolution was bound to be economically harmful and that the ‘ transition from the collective system to private ownership must take place in organized fashion and [only] after the re-establishment of order’. Yet it urged a decision in principle, a campaign in propaganda, and a plan for implementation geared to the abolition of the kolkhoz. But its business was not to formulate agrarian policy. The Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture (State Secretary Backe) [the memorandum continued] defends the point of view that the principle of collective farming must not be tampered with. . . . Backe fears serious danger to German interests if the principle of abolishing the kolkhoz system is proclaimed. . . . After a bitter clash, the ‘ partitioners ’ lost out at a conference on August 19. The diplomats abandoned further debate on actual reprivatization of agriculture. Even in German leaflet propaganda, however, they were unable to make their views prevail or to suggest further action because ‘ concessions from the Food and Agriculture Ministry cannot be expected at the present time’.2 Wi/ID .57*, CRS. In general, the increase in garden plots was effected after the autumn harvest was in. There were some variations in practice. In parts of the Ukraine, compensation for a standard ‘ work day* was raised ; elsewhere, the peasants’ share was increased to a minimum of one-third of the harvest. 1 At a conference on July 31, 1941, Backe again insisted that ‘ no other system [than collective farming] is possible’ in the Soviet area ; popular demands for a reform were to be dismissed if the German food supply was at stake ; and requests of the German civil administration about the need for ‘ adequate food for its popu­ lation must under all circumstances be subordinate to the requirements of the Greater German food economy’ . (WiFStab Ost, ‘ Niederschrift über die Sitzung des W iFSt Ost’, July 31, 1941, Wi/ID .116 *, CRS ; ‘ Materialsammlung’, p. 161.) 2 Document N G-4648*. See also Bräutigam, ‘ Diary’ *, L C (entry for August 16, 1941). The memorandum had as an inclosure an O KW propaganda directive which stated that ‘ . . . the hope [of the population] for the elimination of kolkhoz enterprises shall not be combated in any way but must be . . . relegated to a future date’ .

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Backe’s tenacity was reinforced by the strong stand which Goring had taken from the start. Indeed, it was Göring’s order which had formalized the preservation of the kolkhoz. In the following months, when the economic agencies reported that the harvest was being successfully garnered, Goring (and with him, Erich Koch) saw in this a proof that German goals were being well served by the existing system ; that popular hostility to the collectives was not strong enough to interfere with output; and that ‘ further measures in the field of agrarian policy are superfluous’.1 Goring saw no reason to change his mind. As he had maintained from the beginning, the order of priority in allocating foodstuffs from the East was (1) German troops in the East, (2) German troops elsewhere, (3) German civilian population, (4) the indigenous population in the East, the producers of the food. On the rights of the peasant to this food, Goring added a significant parenthesis : As a matter of principle, only those in the occupied regions who work for us shall be assured of adequate food. Even if one wanted to feed all the remaining population, one could not do so in the newly occupied Eastern area.2 The ‘ General Principles for an Economic Policy in the Newly Occupied Eastern Territories’, adopted by the conference of top officials which met under Göring’s chairmanship on November 8, 1941, repeated the same goals: Germany’s colonial aims and methods in the E a st; the supremacy of war demands; and the extraction of the greatest possible quantities of food from the East ‘ thanks to cheap production and the maintenance of a low standard of living of the native population’ .3 Goring, and with him Koch and Backe, saw no need to reassess their values or plans. The Ostministerium, the political arm, failed to take the initiative in the debates. Rosenberg’s indifference to agrarian problems was due largely to his preoccupation with long-range political affairs and to his unwillingness to take a clear stand either for the collectives — he was too keenly attuned to the political effect of this — or for their dissolution — he was too much impressed by the arguments for the necessity of using Eastern produce to win the war. In this atmosphere of uncertainty, Professor Otto Schiller emerged as a leading policy-maker on Soviet agriculture. Working under Riecke, he was able to influence both the economic sections 1 Grosskopf to Hilger, November 19, 1941, D W /AA 34*, CRS. 2 Nagel, ‘ Wirtschaftsaufzeichnungen’, September 16, 1941, Document 003EC, T M W C , xxxvi, 106-7 ; italics in original. 3 Nagel to Thomas, November 25, 1941*, p. 3. See also Document NI-440, N M T , xiii, 857-66.

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of the Ostministerium and their counterpart at the Wirtschaftsstab. As a former diplomatic official he knew many of the ‘ old Russia hands ’ personally. As a professor he enjoyed a certain prestige for his ‘ objectivity’ and ‘ expertness’ . Schiller was indeed a competent specialist on Soviet agriculture, with an economist’s outlook. Concerned primarily with weighing objective difficulties, he was prone to overlook the political dogmatism of some of his colleagues. He was also less inclined than some to hasten the dissolution of collective farms for political purposes. A strong dose of ‘ patriotic self-interest’ in his outlook made him an acceptable middle-of-theroad spokesman for the Ostministerium and for other agencies which, in the fall of 1941, were floundering between maintaining and breaking up the collective farms.1 At the time of the August debate, Schiller was asked to submit a plan for ‘ realistic’ changes in rural relations. His project recognized that, if only for reasons of sheer magnitude and manpower shortage, German control must be restricted to supervisory functions, thus implying greater autonomy for the indigenous farms. He argued that the full maintenance or re-establishment of collective farms was neither desirable nor possible : collectivism was not in harmony with Nazi theory ; the kolkhoz was not economically rational; and it was the cause of widespread discontent among its members. At the same time, Schiller insisted, it was impossible for technical reasons to divide up the collectives promptly and fully. Then and later he stressed the obstacles created by the depletion of livestock and the evacuation or destruction of most farm machinery. Without a supply of consumer goods there was no incentive for the individual peasant to sow and harvest beyond his household needs; whereas in the kolkhoz or its German-run equivalent compulsion replaced economic incentive. Finally, like some of the economists in the field, Schiller insisted that after a decade of collectivized agriculture the kolkhoz peasants were often incompetent to operate private holdings efficiently — a proposition that evoked considerable dis­ agreement. One substantial report from the agricultural division of WiStab Ost to Goring argued that full reprivatization was impossible because . . . the necessary means of production and operation were lacking, and the majority would not have been capable of managing a small farm in­ dependently, after twenty [mc] years of collectivization. An increase in production and collection was possible only if, on the one hand, the use of the available tractors and implements was assured in the joint operation 1 O n S c h ille r , see also a b o v e , p . 2 3 9 ; a n d h is b o o k , O tto S c h ille r , Ziele und Ergebnisse der Agrarordnung in den besetzten Ostgebieten (B e rlin : R M f d b O . , 1944 )-

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of farming, while, on the other hand, the private initiative of the peasantry was awakened and developed and its industriousness rewarded from the greater yield of its land.1 Schiller urged a gradual transformation of the kolkhoz system through granting some symbolic and some genuine relaxations. Germany would thus maintain the necessary political and economic control while satisfying peasant aspirations sufficiently to reap some tangible benefit in increased yield, delivery, and allegiance. Mean­ while some of the agricultural and military government officers on the spot submitted their own plans for reform along more or less similar lines. From September to December 1941 there took place a tug-of-war over the necessity for, and later, over the extent and forms of, agrarian reform. At first Backe succeeded in vetoing all such efforts, but he could not prevent their further study. In October the opponents of reform still prevailed.123 The arguments continued, and in the next two months the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. Although still firmly opposed to a speedy and drastic reorganization of the collectives, by early 1942 the top policy­ makers had come around to the compromise proposals drafted and revised by Schiller and his staff. The war was proving longer and tougher than expected. After the modest Agrarreform had been decreed, Goebbels noted in his diary : The new slogan, ‘ Land for the Peasants ! ’ appealed especially strongly to the rural population. We could have achieved this success much earlier if we had been cleverer and more farsighted. But we were geared altogether too much to a brief campaign. . . 1 W i S t a b O s t, C h e fg r u p p e L a , ‘ A r b e its b e r ic h t fü r d e n R e ic h s m a r s c h a ir , S e p t e m b e r 1 4 , 1 9 4 3 * , ‘ M a t e r ia ls a m m lu n g ’ , p . 2 8 2 c ; S c h ille r , m e m o r a n d u m , A u g u s t 9, 1 9 4 1 , E A P 9 9 / 6 8 * , C R S ; [ S c h ille r et a /.,] ‘ B e g r ü n d u n g zu d e m E n t w u r f e in e r n e u e n A g r a r o r d n u n g ’ [Ja n u a r y 1 9 4 2 ?], E A P 9 9 / 6 6 * , C R S . S e e also D it t lo ff [R e p o r t C o n c e r n in g Im p r e s s io n s an d O b s e rv a tio n s in th e U k r a in ia n A r e a o f A r m y G r o u p S o u t h ], O c to b e r 10 , 1 9 4 1 , B ra n d t, op. cit. p p . 6 5 9 - 6 4 . D r . S c h ille r h as in fo rm e d m e th at he d id n o t w rite , in sp ire , o r s u p p o rt the d o c u m e n t q u o te d a b o v e . 2 In te r v ie w G - 2 ; W i l n M it t e , C h e fg r u p p e L a , op. cit. ; W i S t a b O st, ‘ A k t e n ­ n o tiz : B e s p r e c h u n g bei S ta a ts s e k re tä r K ö r n e r ’ , S e p t e m b e r 4 , 1 9 4 1 , W i / I D . 3 0 3 * , CRS. O n e o f th e m o st c le a r -c u t — a n d at the sa m e tim e ty p ic a lly p ra g m a tic — A r m y p ro p o sa ls w a s s u b m itte d b y C o lo n e l G e n e r a l S t r a u s s to F ie ld - M a r s h a l vo n B o ck . ‘ I f the R u s s ia n w a r h ad b een a B lit z k r ie g ’ , he w ro te , ‘ w e w o u ld n o t h a v e h ad to take a c c o u n t o f th e c iv ilia n p o p u la tio n ; b u t th e en d is n o t in sig h t. . . . U n d e r the c irc u m s ta n c e s it is no t se n sib le to p u rs u e a c o u rse th a t m ak es the c iv ilia n p o p u la tio n 10 0 p e r ce n t o u r e n e m ie s .’ In ste a d , h e u rg e d th e im m e d ia te p a rtitio n o f h a lf the lan d o f e ach c o lle c tiv e fa rm a m o n g its m e m b e rs , w ith th e o th e r h a lf c o n tin u in g as k o lk h o z lan d , an d to b e so w n a n d h a rv e s te d first. ( A O K 9 to H e e r e s g r u p p e M it t e , ‘ V o r s c h la g fü r S o fo rtm a s s n a h m e n z u m Z w e c k e d e r E r z ie lu n g e in e r p o s itiv e n M ita r b e it d e r ru ssisch e n Z i v ilb e v ö lk e r u n g ’ , D e c e m b e r 1 , 1 9 4 1 , W i/I D .7 3 * , C R S .) 3 The Goebbels Diaries ( G a r d e n C i t y : D o u b le d a y , 1 9 4 8 ) , p. 1 9 5 (e n try fo r A p r il 2 9 , 1 9 4 2 ) .

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The shift in fortune had shown that the good will of the population in the East was a factor not lightly to be dismissed. By the end of 1941 the responsible agencies had had time to assess the mood of the peasantry. Their reports spoke almost unanimously of an insistent, widespread demand for substantial changes in the kolkhoz system. The achievement of a modicum of reform was assisted by the shifting constellation of influences in Berlin. There now began a concentrated effort ‘ to bring Rosenberg into motion’.1 The Ostminister was loath to solicit the Führer’s approval over the deter­ mined opposition of such men as Göring, Backe, and Koch, but his reluctance was overcome by the continuous insistence of his own associates, including Leibbrandt, Bräutigam, and Riecke, and by the assurance of support from Wirtschaftsstab Ost, whose officials, Riecke and Körner especially, were surprisingly eager to endorse the ‘ reform’. Their change of heart was due, in part to the modest nature of Schiller’s proposal and to his insistence that it would increase productivity, and in part to the effect of Riecke’s on-thespot observations in the East. Körner also was influenced by personal animosity for Backe, the main opponent of the reform ; in late November 1941, for instance, he had quarrelled with Backe over the question of feeding the prisoners of war, and this altercation pushed him further into the arms of the ‘ reformists’ .2 Finally, Rosenberg’s staff advanced an argument particularly in keeping with its outlook : the reform was likely to build up the peasantry, especially in the Ukraine, as a counterweight to the urban population, which was considered ‘ proletarianized ’ and permeated by Communist, Russian, and Jewish elements.3 A new series of conferences in the first half of December 1941 thus proved more propitious to the reform project: with the consent of Wirtschaftsstab and Ostministerium, a recommendation was approved in principle to embark on a gradual transformation of kolkhozes into ‘ communes’, with a long-range goal of ‘ individual forms of agriculture’ . Over Backe’s continued opposition, the draft decree was forwarded for final approval on December 16.4 Once 1 G r o s s k o p f to H ilg e r , op. cit. 2 I n te r v ie w s G -2, G - 6 ; V ie r ja h re s p la n , ‘ E r n ä h r u n g d e r ru ssisch e n K r i e g s ­ g e fa n g e n e n ’ , N o v e m b e r 2 9 , 1 9 4 1 , D o c u m e n t 1 7 7 - U . S . S . R . , T M W C , xxxix, 4 4 6 -7 . A fu r t h e r d e v ic e th a t h e lp e d s w a y m e n like K ö r n e r w a s th e sy s te m o f ‘ s t r o n g -p o in t s ’ in c o rp o ra te d in th e re fo rm p ro je c t — an in n o v a tio n in te rp re te d b y th e ‘ G e r m a n iz e r s ’ as th e fo r e ru n n e r o f a n e tw o rk o f G e r m a n estates. ( S e e b e lo w , pp. 3 4 1-2 .) 3 B u c h a r d t, p. 8 4 . W i l n M it t e , C h e fg r u p p e L a , op. cit. ; W i S t a b O st, C h e fg r u p p e L a , ‘ N ie d e r ­ s c h r ift ü b e r d ie B e s p re c h u n g e n m it d en K V V C h e f s d e r W i l n n am 8. u n d 9 . 1 2 . 4 1 D ecem b er 16 , 19 4 1, W i/ I D .8 4 * , C R S .

4

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the basic decision had been taken, the proposed legislation was carefully re-phrased and submitted for Hitler’s approval. The Army now urged rapid acceptance so as to permit prompt propaganda exploitation of the anti-kolkhoz theme, while the economic agencies were eager to institute reforms well in advance of the spring sowing.1 With Backe overruled, the only vociferous protests came from Rosenberg’s obstreperous lieutenants, Lohse and Koch. The Reich Commissar for Ostland insisted that the reform was a political, not an economic, m atter: given the official view that the East was a colonial area, any agrarian reform ran counter to German objectives. He also argued, with more reason, that the proposed changes were too minor to endear the Germans to the local people. At the same time, they amounted to a relaxation of German controls, and for Lohse it was axiomatic that conflicts were least when German controls were greatest.2 When Koch learned of the draft decree, he flew to Berlin to lodge a vehement protest, accusing Rosenberg of ‘ dividing land that had been won with the blood of German soldiers’. When pressed to offer a counter-proposal, Koch drafted an incoherent plan which, while preserving the collective farms, would permit the rural popula­ tion to elect their own village and raion (county) officials. This latter idea — so incongruous for Koch — provided Rosenberg and his associates with an opportunity to attack the Reich Commissar. As the Ostminister recalled later, during his feud with Koch, . . . the RKU all of a sudden maintained that elections ( ! ) should be held in the whole of the Ukraine; their result should form the basis for the appointment of Ukrainian administrative officers (district chiefs, mayors); in other words, while we did away with the old [elective] system in Germany, we were supposed to reintroduce it to the conquered peoples of the East, thus depriving ourselves of the authoritarian leadership.3 The decisive conference took place on February 15, 1942. Hitler studied the Schiller proposal in detail and then read the Koch counterplan. To everybody’s surprise, the Führer, who, earlier, had opposed so strenuously the division of the collective farms, now accepted the reform plan, making bitter fun of Koch’s ‘ election programme’.4 With Hitler’s approval, Rosenberg could now sign the Agrarreform into law. 1 ‘ M a t e r ia ls a m m lu n g ’ , p . 1 5 0 ; in te rv ie w G - 3 1 . 2 L o h s e to R o s e n b e r g , F e b r u a r y 4 , 1 9 4 2 , E A P 9 9 / 4 9 0 * , C R S . 3 R o s e n b e r g to L a m m e r s , M a r c h 3 1 , 1 9 4 3 , D o c u m e n t 3 5 8 - P S * , p . 1 6 ; K o c h , m e m o r a n d u m , F e b r u a r y 5 , 1 9 4 2 , E A P 9 9 / 4 5 7 * , C R S ; in t e r v ie w G - 3 1 . 4 In te r v ie w G - 2 ; D o c u m e n t 2 9 4 - P S , T M W C , x x v , 3 3 5 . In h is b r ie f p ro to c o l o f th e c o n fe re n c e , R o s e n b e r g a d d e d g le e fu lly th a t th e F ü h r e r h a d fo u n d K o c h ’ s a rg u m e n ts ‘ n o n e too w e i g h t y ’ . R o s e n b e r g h ad in siste d , in re p ly to H it le r ’ s

G.R.R.— Z

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Hitler’s decision would indicate that he did not consider the reform as a basic departure from the substance of collective farming. By this time the military situation had made him acutely aware of the growing economic needs of the Reich. Moreover, the scope of the reform was reduced by a reservation introduced by Himmler (and accepted by H itler): the land was to be given to the peasants for their use [Nutzung] rather than as their property [Eigentum].1 Indeed, the object of the agrarian reform was not the sudden or complete abolition of the kolkhozes. While it provided for several successive stages and alternative phases of reform, it was so phrased as to ‘ leave all the possibilities open’ (as its authors themselves stated).2 It is therefore significant that even this project ran into such formidable opposition — not from specialists denying its economic feasibility but from politicians denying its propriety and necessity. The Agrarerlass The detailed new Agrarerlass, signed into law on February 15, 1942, and published on February 26 — together with Rosenberg’s preamble and concluding appeal, and minute instructions to propa­ gandists and agrarian experts in the East — constituted several sizeable pamphlets, distributed in millions of copies.3 In his pre­ amble, Rosenberg sought to forestall peasant disappointment in the narrow scope of the long-awaited reform : . . . I know that you want to secure all the fruits of your labour for yourselves, your families, and your village communities. I now rely upon your common sense, however. You will understand that after the destruction of your livestock by Bolshevism and the destruction of so many villages and so much equipment through the war, a time of transition is at first required to overcome, eventually, the terrible consequences of the murderous kolkhoz legislation. The new decree was a symptom of German readiness to change the kolkhoz system, Rosenberg proclaimed, provided that the population did as the Germans wanted. The ‘ fruits of your labour’, he told the kolkhoz members, would be turned over to them ‘ on the basis of q u e stio n , th a t K o c h ’s ele ctio n p ro g r a m m e w a s ‘ a lm o st the E n g lis h H o u s e o f L o r d s ’ a n d h e n c e d a n g e ro u s. (R o s e n b e r g , ‘ V e r m e r k ü b e r e in e U n te r r e d u n g b e im F ü h r e r ’, Feb ru ary [ 15 ,] 19 4 2 , E A P 9 9 /4 9 9 *, C R S .) S e e Braune Mappe, Teil A , 2 n d e d ., p . 1 3 . 2 [S c h ille r et al.,] ‘ B e g r ü n d u n g ’ , op. cit. 3 R M f d b O . , Die neue Agrarordnung mit Präambel und Schlusswort [B e rlin , 1 9 4 2 ] ; R M f d b O . , Anweisungen für Propagandisten und Landwirtschaftsführer zum Agrar­ erlass a n d Durchführung der Agrarordnung : Informationen und Anweisungen [B e rlin ,

1

19 4 2].

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your performance’. Both the ‘ carrot’ and the ‘ whip’ were again in evidence. The Agrarerlass annulled all Soviet decrees and regulations concerning the collective farms. Henceforth the kolkhozes were to be known as communal economies [Gemeinwirtschaften, officially translated into Russian as obshchinnoe khoziaistvo], in an obvious effort to revive the pre-Soviet concept of a village commune. This was to serve as a ‘ transitional form ’ under which the communes would continue working as heretofore, ‘ according to the directives of the German administration’. For those peasants who had dreamt of farming their own land, this came as a bitter disappointment. As under the kolkhoz system, ‘ the land of the communes is to be worked communally’, and all able-bodied members of the village ‘ are obliged to work’. The Germans would, as before, assign grain delivery quotas, and the heads of the communes would be held responsible for their punctual and complete fulfilment. There were some relaxations. The individual household plots were declared private property and were freed from taxation — a move promised and largely carried out the previous fall. The size of the individual plots could be increased ‘ to an extent which does not encroach upon the work of the peasants in the commune’, with the approval of the indigenous administration, over which the German officials had a veto power (Article B). This was, in substance, a slight retreat from the more general promise of increased household plots made the previous August. Moreover, according to Hitler’s personal wishes, the enlargement of private plots was to be ‘ softpedalled’ [kurz zu treten], for fear of making any native a landowner.1 The communes were strikingly similar to the Soviet collective farms. Most decidedly, they were not voluntary co-operatives which the peasants could join and leave at will, and the entire system was planned to give privileges to those who worked most loyally and strenuously for the Germans. Even in enlarging the household plots, priority was given to those who ‘ proved themselves in their work’ . A widely disseminated poster read, ‘ Work More — The Better for Yourself’, and another, distributed in the Ukraine, threatened all ‘ loafers’ and others who wilfully failed to do their utmost, with ‘ punishment and compulsory labour’. The commune preserved one of the major sources of peasant resentment: the system of compensation by trudodni, or book­ keeping ‘ work days’, calculated according to types of duties and 1 W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Niederschrift über die Besprechung mit den K V V C h efs der W ilnn am 2. und 3. März 1942*, March 14, 1942, W i/ID .84*, C R S , p. 6.

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strictly exacted from each of its members. The German officials fully recognized the unpopularity of this system and had initially provided for its abolition. However, the official reform made no reference to it, and in practice it remained virtually unchanged. The alternative was fixed wage rates and cash payments — something which, Schiller insisted, was likely to be equally unpopular, and, furthermore, was impossible so long as the essentials of the kolkhoz system were preserved and money had Jess attraction than payment in kind. In anticipation of peasant dissatisfaction, special instructions were issued on how to explain why the communes need be preserved. They amounted to the following slogans : Have patience. Even under the communes you are better off than on the kolkhoz. You can show initiative and own your cattle. The better you do in the commune, the faster the next transformation will begin. The main thing is to get agricultural output going so that everyone has something to eat. You must help the German advisers help you raise the yield of the land, or else you must all starve.1 Berlin well knew that ‘ the transformation of the kolkhozes into communal economies . . . meant for the time being but a change in nomenclature’ .2 It was felt necessary, therefore, to outline a procedure for further and more substantial changes. Where ‘ the necessary economic and technical prerequisites’ were fulfilled, the Agrarerlass provided that communal land ‘ might’ be turned over to individual peasant families for their own use. The decree emphati­ cally barred all seizure of land without German sanction; peasants who independently did so were threatened with fines and exclusion from the benefits of subsequent partitions. German approval for the assignment of land to individuals was to be granted only when the peasant applicant had fulfilled his delivery obligations towards the Germans. Those who had not, and those who were deemed ‘ politically unreliable’ or ‘ unfit for individual use of land’, were to be barred from tenure. This ‘ higher phase’ (a term suspiciously familiar to Soviet kolkhozniks who had for decades heard of ‘ socialism’ as a lower 1 Paraphrase, RM fdbO ., Richtlinien für die propagandistische Auswertung des Agrarerlasses [Berlin, 1942], section I. In some villages [the instructions continued] the peasants themselves, without asking us, have dissolved the collective farms and partitioned the land into private plots. Only disorder, strife, and general discontent have resulted. The most forward took the most, and the modest and weak people were left. And then the peasants came to ask us to restore order. This sort of thing must not happen! 2 Schiller, Ziele und Ergebnisse, p. 19.

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phase of Communism) on the way to individual landholding was to be the creation of villages in which the land was held in equal strips by individual peasant households, assigned to ‘ permanent work and use’ but not ownership. Such committees were to be known as agricultural co-operatives [in Russian, zemledeUcheskoe tovarishchestvo ; in German, Landbaugenossenschaft] (Article D). This new ‘ co-operative’ would be a hybrid organism. The prospect of its formation was held before the peasants as an induce­ ment to produce more. Those who understood the ‘ requirements and necessities of the time’ would be better off in the co-operatives since ‘ higher performance would lead to correspondingly higher personal benefit’. Yet the co-operatives would also be Germancontrolled. All regulations, including a plan for sowing and harvest­ ing, would be issued ‘ according to the directives of the German administration’. While the harvest was to be gathered individually, in effect, a large part of the work would remain communal: sowing, ploughing, and threshing were to be done jointly. Furthermore, the German grain delivery quota would be set for the community as a whole; the local administration would divide it up among the house­ holds, and failure to fulfil one’s quota implied forfeiture of landhold­ ing (Article E). Somewhat on the defensive, Schiller later argued that the meaning of the agricultural co-operative has often been misunderstood since many suspected that it was a variant of the kolkhoz. In reality it means, however, a co-operative joining of individual economies. In the light of subsequent practice, this thesis was hardly tenable. The telling arguments against a more complete partition of col­ lective farms, according to him, were of a technical nature; other reasons, as has been shown, were political. Indeed, Schiller, too, was prepared to argue that the agricultural co-operative is not to be considered merely as an emergency solution for the present period of lack of inventory; it may be entirely suitable as a long-range form for the merger [Zusammenschluss] of peasant smallholdings.1 As an exceptional phenomenon, the Agrarerlass referred to a third form of agricultural organization : private farms created by combining (or trading) strips into one piece of land, in a manner reminiscent of the pre-Soviet otrub or khutor (Article F). Here the prospect was left so vague and the prerequisites were so complex that one could safely assume the prospect of establishing private farms to be little more than a propagandistic afterthought. 1

Ibid. p. 14 .

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The adoption of the Agrarerlass provided the sagging German propaganda campaign in the East with a sudden fillip. Goebbels himself departed from his monotonous, biting indictments of the Ostministerium to note hopefully that I expect very much from this reform when it is brought to the attention of the broad masses of the [peasants]. If we should be in a position actually to give [them] land, they would look forward to an eventual return of the Bolsheviks with decidedly mixed feelings.1 Indeed, during no other single period was the amount of German propaganda poured into the occupied areas so voluminous. Leaflets, posters, wall-newspapers, facsimiles of the decree, and pictures were produced in many millions of copies. In the local press, lengthy articles sought to portray the reform as the dawn of a new day.12 Not everyone in Berlin — let alone in the field — was convinced. The agrarian reform was but a small step towards satisfying peasant aspirations. The main reasons for adopting it, in the face of longrange Nazi plans, were succinctly put by the legal expert who helped draft the decree : it was to find a modus vivendi acceptable to both the Germans and the Soviet peasantry.3 It was, in substance, a compromise between the economists, many of whom magnified the objective obstacles to reprivatization, and the politicians, many of whom were reluctant to concede the necessity of any ‘ retreat’ from the kolkhoz system. The similarity of the lower phase of the new order — the com­ mune — to the Soviet collective farm furnished German critics of the reform with powerful ammunition. The director of the SS Wannsee-Institut, for instance, dissected the Agrarerlass in a devastating brochure : The first [of the three forms outlined by the reform, he wrote] is no more than . . . the artel', the basic Bolshevik collectivist form in which the kolkhozes have existed in the Soviet Union since the winter of 1929-30 as state institutions, properly speaking. . . . (1) The proclamation of the small garden plot as private property signifies no fundamental change 1 The Goebbels Diaries, p. 55. 1 RM fdbO ., ‘ Hinweise zum Einsatz der zum Agrar-Erlass vorgesehenen Druckerzeugnisse’ , Anweisungen für Propagandisten. In Germany, too, the abolition of the collective farms — ‘ a Jewish invention’ — in favour of what was ambiguously called a ‘ fluid’ system was acclaimed in a variety of popular and specialized publications. See, for instance, ‘ Die Landbevölkerung im besetzten Osten wird frei’, V B -M , February 28, 1942 ; Ostland (Berlin), xxiii, no. 6 (March 15, 1942). 3 Ministerialdirigent Schefold, ‘ Die “ neue Agrarordnung” für die besetzten Ostgebiete’, Ostwirtschaft, xxxvi, no. 2 ( F e b r u a r y 1942), 2 1-2 .

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in the present status of the farm, since the kolkhoz farmer has always considered this land to be his property. (2) The exemption of the small plot from taxation has nothing to- do with a basic change in the kolkhoz constitution. . . . (3) The enlargement of the garden plot is made dependent on the condition that thereby the peasant’s work in the com­ munal economy is not impaired. This consideration also prevailed under Bolshevik conditions. . . . (4) The question of private cattle-ownership, given the maintenance of the kolkhoz system . . . has no decisive importance for the peasant until he has his own feed base. . . . (5) The system of remuneration by trudodni is to [remain] . . . fundamentally unchanged.1 The second phase — the agricultural co-operative — represented a more meaningful departure from the kolkhoz type of agriculture. However, it was implemented only slowly and incompletely. Even here, German supervision and control were (at least in theory) air­ tight ; whether or not it would satisfy the peasantry remained to be seen. As for the third phase — private farming — it was in the realm of speculation. While the reform was acclaimed by its authors and supporters, other men — in organizations as far apart politically as the Russland-Gremium and the SS — concluded that it was little more than a sham. German Controls The breakdown of the Soviet system for collecting and distri­ buting agricultural produce prompted the Germans to create a new organization — corporations set up for the occupied East and acting as sole trustees or custodians [T reuhänder] for the Reich. The most important of these was the Central Trading Company for the East [Zentralhandelsgesellschaft Ost, abbreviated ZO or ZHO], Operating as a monopoly government corporation under the guidance of Economic Staff East, it established a network of hundreds of offices supervising close to a million indigenous personnel. Its tasks included, above all, the collection, transportation, and distribution of produce from the occupied East, and also the management of agricultural and dairy processing plants, and the supply of equipment and consumer goods to the Soviet peasantry. Its principal ‘ custo­ mer’ was, of course, the German Army. The confusion of military, civil, and economic directives, and the low calibre of its personnel seriously impaired its efficiency. Yet its prerogatives were sub­ stantial ; at the peak of operations, it managed over 4000 plants. Some of its German sponsors pointed out with pride that it was not a capitalist organization and that its profits never accrued to private 1 Akhmeteli, op. cit.

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enterpreneurs. On the contrary, Berlin looked upon it as a source of revenue that might eventually help make up the expenses of the war.1 In similar fashion, a special corporation [LandbewirtschaftungsGesellschaft Ukraine, or L B G U ] took over the management of state farms and, later, the general technical supervision of agri­ cultural co-operatives in the Ukraine. An analogous body was established in Ostland. By the end of 1942, they controlled over 3000 state farms as government trustees.12 Next to the kolkhozes, the major form of Soviet agricultural organization was the sovkhoz, or state farm, which also proved eminently well suited to Nazi purposes. In effect the sovkhoz, a large estate employing farm labour, was fully in harmony with German ideals of a colonial plantation and with the German insist­ ence that a Grosswirtschaft was more efficient than the same area divided into many individual holdings. It could be controlled easily by a small number of Germans, and in the future it could be a model for creating large German farms owned or administered by the state, by special groups such as the SS or Army, or by individual Germans. Indeed, the SS attacked the agrarian reform for its criminal failure to further the creation of German state farms in the East, of ‘ domains [capable of] being built up into strong-points of political power for the control of the countryside’.3 If in the Reich there were no vocal objections to a wholesale transformation of collective farms into state farms, those officials who had to cope with practical problems on the spot were well aware of the chaos which such a scheme would have occasioned, not only in overtaxing German personnel and facilities but in damaging farm output and in provoking strong peasant reactions.4 Hence the 1 By decree, its purchase prices for grain were considerably lower than its resale prices, in a manner analogous to Soviet practice. The price differential was introduced because ‘ we have no interest in paying the peasant excessive prices* and the lack of consumer goods would reduce the value of German occupation currency. (W iStab Ost, Merkblatt, March 1942, W i/ID 2 .13 4 4 * , C R S.) 2 For the decrees establishing the L B G s in Ostland and Ukraine, see Meyer, Recht, sections O iii D b4 and U iii Db2. On the ZH O and L B G , see also Grüne Mappe, Teil II, 3rd ed., pp. 16 -17 , 189-202 ; Document 1 5 9 1 -P S * ; Brandt, op. cit. pp. 83-8 ; ‘ Materialsammlung’ , pp. 157-8 ; Vierjahresplan, directives to ZH O , 19 4 1-2 , Document N G - 9 8 5 * ; Sdf(Z) Wasert, ‘ Die Zentralhandels­ gesellschaft Ost*, W iln Nord, Landwirtschaftsführer, no. 3 (June 1943), pp. 30 -1 ; Leonhard Fleischberger, ‘ Die ZO . im Osteinsatz’ , Vierjahresplan (Berlin), vii, no. 6 (June 1943), 2 1 2 - 1 6 ; Rosenberg to Bormann, October 17, 1944, Document 327-P S , T M W C , xxv, 353-60 ; and Fleischberger, affidavit, Document Schwerinvon-Krosigk-350*. 3 Akhmeteli, op. cit. This view was expressed in at least three different S S reports submitted in 19 4 1-2 . 4 Some kolkhozes were none the less merged into new state farms and experi­ mental stations ( Wilnaer Zeitung, August 24, 1942).

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agrarian decree of February 15, 1942 (Article C), provided simply that the sovkhozes be taken over ‘ by the German administration as former property of the [Soviet] state’ and renamed state farms [Staatsgüter] — precisely what had already taken place. Hitler forbade, for the duration of the war, the assignment of property rights in occupied Russia to individual Germans — at least until such time as the front-line troops could participate in the division of the spoils. Most of the state farms remained in the hands of the German government.1 Their future fate and present control were not publicized — in large measure, because of Berlin’s sensitivity to Soviet counter-propaganda, well reflected in the following German directives : It is a sign of poor political understanding when [German] publications report the formation of new state farms. Enemy propaganda accuses the German administration specifically of wishing to restore the old landed estates and therewith servitude. The peasants in the occupied territories, however, as the result of a half-century of evolution have become sworn enemies of the old landed estates. If they should learn of such reports about the formation of new state farms, it would awaken the distrust of the rural population and even support enemy propaganda.2 The problem of German control and settlement became curiously entwined with the fate of the M T S , or Machine-Tractor Stations. The latter had been foci of Soviet political surveillance over neigh­ bouring villages and, through their control of machinery and specialists, they had come to exercise a far-reaching control over the work of the collective farms. For the Germans, the M T S were welcome points of political and economic leverage. Their economic significance, it is true, was severely impaired through lack of fuel and by the extensive Soviet evacuation of agricultural machinery; what was left was usually so badly wrecked that it was difficult or impossible to repair. Where possible, the M T S were restored to operation under the management of German-appointed engineers.3 An outgrowth of the Schiller thesis that Germany must restrict itself to supervision of Eastern agriculture and avoid detailed inter­ ference was a suggestion for establishing a network of Germancontrolled ‘ strong-points ’ — one for every few villages — from which the farms could be effectively controlled. The M T S seemed well 1 Grüne Mappe, Teil 77, 3rd ed., pp. 184 ff. ; Brandt, op. eit. pp. 100- 1 ; interview G -2. 2 RM fdbO ., Richtlinien für die Pressezensur in den besetzten Ostgebieten (Berlin, ist ed., January 1943), P- 6. 3 The Agrarerlass confirmed the Reich’s rights to them as former Soviet state property (Article C). See also ‘ Maschinen-Traktoren-Station’ , Grüne Mappe, Teil 77 , 3rd ed., p. 178.

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suited to become such ‘ strong-points’ . Some of the economists advocated the scheme primarily on economic grounds, in emulation of the Rumanian ocolul agricol — agronomic stations with model farms, machinery, sample seeds, and show cattle. Others, eager to promote the Germanization of the East, gained the impression that German control from these ‘ strong-points’ would amount to the establishment of German estates scattered among the indigenous villages. The wording of the February 1942 decree was made intentionally vague so as to permit different interpretations ; indeed, Körner’s absorption with the strong-point project was partly re­ sponsible for his support of the agrarian reform. Riecke likewise told Himmler that the system meant ‘ six to ten farms — former kolkhozes — would be cared for and financed by a German centre ’ . And Schiller himself argued, according to the minutes, that the M T S should become ‘ centres of German economic administration’ and that their managers could become tenants of the Reich, paying rent in kind in lieu of taxes.1 The Agrarerlass of February 1942 provided equivocally that Appropriate M T stations will be developed into agricultural strongpoints. The task of these bases consists in taking all measures that serve agricultural progress within their sphere of activity, and in creating all the installations necessary therefor . . . [Article C]. In the backstage arguments over the decree, its sponsors went much further. Just as it was necessary to show that the reform would not impede Germanization plans, it had to be explained that the German strong-points would supplant the M T S as points of departure for German settlement. [In general,] a partial transition to individual farming does not hinder the subsequent implementing of plans for German farming and German settlement. . . . [In particular,] as soon as agricultural conditions and especially price relations have been stabilized, the German manager can be installed on the strong-point entrusted to him as its Grundherr operating on his own account. Thus he becomes master of the 10-15 farms en­ trusted to him, which operate according to his prescriptions and for whose agricultural furtherance he is responsible.2 In practice, the Germanization-type strong-point was never set up, while the M TS-type strong-point, combining political with 1 W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Niederschrift über die Besprechungen mit den K V V C h efs der W ilnn am 8. und 9 .1 2 .1 9 4 1 ’, December 16, 19 41, W i/ID .84*, C R S ; Meyer, ‘ Bericht’, February 19, 1942, Document N G - i u 8 * ; interviews G -2 , G -6. T h e strong-point system, of course, dovetailed with the settlement programme of the S S , discussed above (Chapter X IV ). 2 [Schiller et al.t] ‘ Begründung’ , pp. 5-6.

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economic control, was developed to serve more overt purposes of efficiency, supervision, and productivity. It emerged principally in the Ukraine, where each station had from ten to twenty communes or co-operatives under it, or an area of over 10,000 hectares. From the human point of view, ‘ while some of them [the German mana­ gers] speedily took hold in their new environment and successfully discharged their responsibilities, there were not a few who failed completely 1 Brandt, op. cit. pp. 81, 99-100.

C H A P T E R XVI I

G E R M A N Y AND E A S T E R N A G R I C U L T U R E :

II

T h e p a rtia l so lu tio n s o f c o m m u n e s a n d c o -o p e ra tiv e s , e v e n w h ile u n q u e s tio n a b ly h a v in g a fa v o u r a b le e ffe ct so fa r as th e y w e n t, d id n o t s a tis fy th e R u s s ia n p e a sa n t.— C aptain Hans K och, S u m m a r y R e p o r t, F e b r u a r y 7 , 1 9 4 5

Reform in the South I n theory, the Agrar erlass, pompously promulgated in February 1942, applied equally to all German-held areas of the U .S.S.R . In practice, it was applied in so many various ways as to make it meaningless to speak of a unified agrarian policy. Some of the regional variations were due to the ‘ implementing directives’ issued by the Special Staff for the Agrarian Order [Sonderstab Agrarordnung] established at each of the Economic Inspectorates. These directives followed the basic distinction between the programme for the surplus areas and that outlined for the grain deficit regions farther north.1 Other differences arose from the personal proclivities of the officers on the spot and from the specific pressures which they encountered and yielded to without consulting headquarters. The main water­ shed of policy divided the Ukraine and the adjacent Army area from Belorussia and the area of Army Groups North and Centre; the North Caucasus and the Baltic States received special treatment. In each instance, the specific content of agrarian policy can be traced both to certain broad elements of the over-all plan established in Berlin, and to the outlook of individuals operating in the field. The Ukraine was the key area of agricultural production and was enthusiastically referred to by German planners as the bread­ basket of the New Europe. It attracted the special attention of the Wirtschaftsstab, and Schiller himself supervised the implementation of the reform there. Erich Koch was committed, of course, to stifling all efforts that smacked of popular autonomy. His goal, repeated incessantly, was twofold : to provide labour for the Reich and food for the Army and the home front. 1 On the difference in goals, see above, Chapter X V ; on the Sonderstab, see ‘ Materialsammlung,, p. 152. In general, for further details on German agrarian policy and practice, see Karl Brandt et al.9 Management of Agriculture and Food in the German-Occupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1953), chs. vii-x. 344

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The only contribution [he wrote his subordinates] which the indigenous population can make to its liberation is to repay Germany by labour and deliveries of food for a small part of what Germany has sacrificed in the blood of its best sons. . . . And if we are faced with the choice of whether our fellow-nationals in Germany or the Ukrainians should starve, we certainly know which choice to make. ‘ In the face of these tasks’ , he announced, ‘ the feeding of the civilian population [in the Ukraine] is a matter of utter indifference.’ 1 Given his outlook and the underlying assumption that more pressure makes for greater collection of produce — it was hardly surprising that he considered as a crime any plan to give the Ukrainian peasants their own land, since in the future ‘ such privileges would have to be forfeited’, when the German migrants started arriving.12 Koch set out frankly to sabotage the agrarian decrees, which had been adopted over his determined protest. His actions, the OM i’s agricultural section was compelled to recognize the following year, ‘ have for months been a source of greatest concern’ : The political line which [Koch] has been pursuing since his activity began and which, especially in recent months, has been in conflict with that [of the Ostministerium] must lead to a situation in which the ex­ ploitation of the country — decisive as it is for the further conduct of the war — is endangered.3 Koch was accused, not of pursuing goals of his own, but by his methods of making impossible the exploitation which he himself propounded. Concerned primarily with the collection of foodstuffs, Koch failed to see the impact of the procurement programme on political attitudes and, in the last analysis, on production. Roundly attacked for his political approach, Koch was not challenged for the agrarian facets of his policy. His staff, it is true, ran into considerable con­ flicts with Schiller, who was personally supervising the reform in the Ukraine. However, for economic and political reasons, Schiller himself favoured a go-slow policy in reshaping agriculture precisely in the Ukraine.4 Even the limited changes which Schiller had drafted for the R K U were not approved by Koch until considerable pressure was 1 Paraphrase, Koch, speech, August 26-28, 1942, Document 264-P S, T M W C , xxv, 3 18 ; Koch, circular, August 25, 1942, H Geb 7 5 15 6 / 1* , C R S . 2 Hadamowsky and Taubert, ‘ Bericht über die Propaganda-Lage im Osten*, September 17, 1942, Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O , pp. 19-20. See also T M W C , xi, 48. 3 Riecke to Rosenberg, March 30, 1943, Document Rosenberg-19, T M W C , xli, 195. 4 Interviews G -2, G -6.

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applied. While Koch pretended to be restating the Rosenberg decree, in so doing he changed its tenor greatly. Koch’s version stressed the prerogatives of the German administration. It counter­ manded some of the clauses of the basic decree, such as the private ownership of cattle, and it emphasized German authority to impose fines on the peasantry. His subsequent decrees did nothing to improve the situation.1 Even after the adoption of the implementing directives for the R K U , the chief of Koch’s agricultural section, Hellmut Körner, continued to subvert their execution. In June 1942 he went so far as to protest to Riecke against the Ostministerium directive providing for decent treatment of the Ukrainian population. His premise — like Koch’s and Dargel’s — was that only compulsion would make the Ukrainians work and therefore the decree would cause ‘ a sub­ stantial decrease in the performance of the Ukrainians’. When Schiller complained to Berlin about his activities, Körner tried to prevent him from reporting over his head. Finally, in April 1943, Riecke sternly rebuked Körner for wilfully delaying the execution of Berlin’s orders regarding the reform.2 The tragic, or farcical, aspect of the controversy was the fact that the changes agreed upon for the Ukraine were so trifling as to be almost meaningless. In 1942, the first year of the reform, the nominal change of collectives into ‘ communes’ took place here as everywhere else. Only ‘ from 10 to 20 per cent’ of the communes, however, were to be selected for transformation into co-operatives, and this figure was promptly slashed to 10 per cent. Actually, by May 1943 the number of communes reorganized into co-operatives varied from 8 to 16 per cent in various districts of the R K U . The aim for 1943, after a whole year of preparation, was to transform another 20 per cent. By the end of 1943, i.e. in substance the end of the occupation of the R K U ’s richer areas, less than half the land had been turned over to individual households for co-operative cultivation. The next promised phase — private farms — was not even discussed.3 Thus the extent of change was least precisely in that area which was by far the most important in terms of grain 1 Koch, circular, April 15, 1942, R K U , Zentralblatt, i (1942), 9 -1 1 . Later decrees required the surrender of beef and milk, the free use of cows by the Germans up to five hours a day, and the surrender of 25 per cent of the grain quota over and above the general delivery norm. (Ibid, i, 325-7, 406-7.) 2 Körner to Riecke, June 9, 1942, W i/ID .84*, C R S ; Riecke to Körner, April 20, 1943, W i/ID .77*, C R S ; interview G -2. See also Hellmut Körner, affidavit, Document Körner-1 2 1 * . 3 Interview G -2 ; Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung*, October 25, 1942, Document 294-P S, T M W C , xxv, 336 ; Document 264-PS, T M W C , xxv, 318 ; Erich Koch, ‘ Ukraine in der Bewährung*, V B -B , March 7, 1943 ; W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La,

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deliveries. Politics and economics merged in the adoption of myopic tactics that minimized the extent and the impact of the reform. It was not merely Koch’s dogmatic stubbornness that delayed reprivatization of farming in the Ukraine. Analogous directives were applied in the adjacent areas under military government. In a region with substantially the same conditions, Wirtschafts-Inspektion Süd (later known as Don-Donets) initially pursued a similar course of slow and often nominal transformation, with pace and practices identical with those of the R K U . The Deficit Areas and Agrarian Reform A different spirit prevailed in the agricultural deficit areas farther to the north. Some German officials, such as Dr. Weimert, head of the Sonderstab for Army Group Centre Rear Area, and Baron von Wrangell, a Baltic German in the agricultural section of Economic Inspectorate North, advocated more rapid and more extensive de-collectivization. Less crucial to the Reich in terms of deliveries, these areas were to a greater extent left to their local administrators. Since the country was less fertile than the Ukraine, the overriding pro-collectivist argument — the expected breakdown of production during the abolition of kolkhozes — was virtually of no significance here. The German war economy could more easily bend to political considera­ tions here than in the richer surplus areas of the south. Finally, for the economists of WiStab Ost there was also a theoretical, and not unreasonable, justification for a more lenient attitude towards peasant landholding. In Schiller’s own words, in the areas of Belorussia, Army Group North and Centre, the terrain is often so heterogeneous and broken up by forests, bogs, bushes, and fields, that communal use of land becomes very difficult and loses its practical advantages. In such instances, partition [even] into individual holdings is preferable.1 ‘ Durchführung der Agrarordnung’ , June 19, 19 4 2 * ; Schiller, Ziele und Ergebnisse der Agrarordnung (Berlin : RM fdbO., 1944), ch. iii. In some parts of the Ukraine, an intermediate phase between communal and individual holdings was introduced by splitting the collectives into groups of ten (sometimes five or eight) peasant households which used their equipment and draught animals jointly whenever practicable without, however, individually owning their land. The per capita yield in these communes was reported to have increased as a result. In other parts of the Ukraine, where the communes were formally main­ tained, the village administration was allowed to rent communal land to individual households for more intense cultivation. A t the very end of the occupation, a token ‘ rapid procedure’ for the transportation of communes into collectives was pushed through for propaganda purposes. (W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Durch­ führung’ ; Hadamowsky and Taubert, op. cit. ; interview G -2.) 1 Schiller, Ziele und Ergebnisse, p. 18.

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As a result, the implementation of the Agrarerlass got underway quickly in the civilian part of Belorussia.1 As early as April and May 1942 the first 1400 farms were reorganized, not into communes but directly into some 5300 co-operatives with a total of 123,000 house­ holds. Other collectives followed their lead, so that before the end of the year — just as the first co-operatives were emerging in the Ukraine — the job was entirely finished in Belorussia.2 In most instances, there occurred a return to the system of strip-farming and other pre-Soviet institutions, apparently with considerable support from the peasants themselves. At the same time, individual house­ hold plots were enlarged appreciably, and intensive cultivation was stepped up.3 Without the extreme dogmatism and terror which frustrated meaningful change in agrarian relations in the Ukraine, it was possible in Belorussia to concentrate on removing the objective obstacles, of which there was no dearth. Among them were the lack of cattle and horses, resulting from the Soviet evacuation and the ensuing chaos, the shortage of artificial fertilizer, the absence of agricultural machinery.4 Considering the manifold difficulties involved, peasant discontent with the ‘ new agrarian order’ was strikingly less than in the Ukraine. The political effect of the reform was often nullified by other facets of life under the occupation. Belorussia became a stronghold of the Soviet partisans, who raided villages in search of food. In many instances, the peasants, resenting both partisan requisitions and German forced delivery quotas, sought to combat the partisans with primitive German-supported ‘ self-defence’ units. In other regions German anti-partisan warfare was carried on with such terrorism as to drive the peasantry into the partisans’ hands. Terrorism and other German measures, notably forced labour conscription, wiped out whatever political benefit the Reich might have derived from the more substantial agrarian reform.5 1 For the implementing directives of March 23, 1942, see Meyer, Recht, section O iii Db6 ; and Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien, Amtsblatt, ii (1942), 85-6. 2 Friedrich Klau, ‘ Europas unbekanntestes V olk ’, Walter Zimmerman, ed., A u f Informationsfahrt im Ostland (Riga : R K O , 1944), P- 8 ° ; Freitag to Riecke, June 28, 1943, Document 3000-PS, T M W C , xxxi, 464 ; Rosenberg, interview, V B -B , June 14, 1942. Belorussia, of course,'included a large area which, Polish until 1939, had virtually no collectives to dissolve. 3 Fritz Nonnenbruch, ‘ Wirtschaftsankurbelung im Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien*, Zimmermann, op. cit. p. 23 ; ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 154 ff. 4 See Zimmermann, op. cit. pp. 194, 272-8 1 ; and W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Die Aufgaben und Leistungen der landwirtschaftlichen Verwaltung in den besetzten Ostgebieten*, October 1944, W i/ID .382*, C R S , pp. 25-7. 5 It is worth noting, however, that in 1942, when they were still weak, the partisans were hard-pressed to find effective counter-propaganda themes to the

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Economic Inspectorate North had energetically embarked on a programme of de-collectivization even prior to the approval of the Agrar erlass.1 As early as the fall of 1941 a strip system was re­ introduced, and the harvest was divided among the peasants, both to stimulate farm work and to gain the allegiance of the rural population. The result, W iln Nord reported with some pride, was ‘ a surprisingly high performance’. A ‘ communal aid’ system was introduced, making private ownership of cattle and equipment contingent on helping members of the community who lacked them. At the same time, private plots were enlarged up to four or five hectares of arable land.2 In 1942 the partition of the collective farms was completed without even resorting to the intermediate stage of Gemeinwirtschaften. Kolkhozes were divided into component villages, which in turn were partitioned into fields and strips, of which an equal number were assigned to each household ; meadows were distributed in equal parts, while pasture and forests were retained in joint use. What remained was a form of voluntary co­ operatives in which the community (or the Germans) prescribed the crop to be planted in each field ; farm work was done individually or co-operatively as the peasants saw fit, and the harvest (subject to severe German requisitions) went to the individual households. Unfettered by dogmatic directives and guided by a relatively sound understanding of local demands, the agrarian section of W iln Nord achieved a comparatively successful, painless, and rapid transfor­ mation. It dispensed with the complex surveying that preceded reorganization in other areas, leaving the details to be worked out by the peasants or with German help at a later date. Indeed, the Inspectorate reported, experience showed that the peasants on their own were prone to select that form of organization which was economically best suited to their individual conditions and most conducive to securing greater yield. Berlin tolerated such unusual German agrarian reform in Belorussia. A t that time they even embarked on a somewhat similar reform in the areas they themselves controlled — a fact never reported by the Soviet press. (Interviews G -2, G -3, G - n , G -3 1 ; ‘ MaterialSammlung*, p. 15 4 ; Viktor Liventsev, Partisanskii krai [Moscow : Molodaia Gvardiia, 19 5 1], P- I 73 -) 1 T h e work of the economic inspectorates and commands, operating in con­ junction with the military government agencies, must not be confused with the activities of front-line troops, which, having been ordered to live off the land, often confiscated wantonly. Indeed, when under attack by Rosenberg, Koch could point with some justice to the A rm y’s arbitrary seizure of horses and cattle which rendered farm work more difficult. The effect of such ‘ operations* was naturally detrimental to popular morale. (See Brandt, op. cit. ; and Documents N G -1 0 3 7 * ; N G - 1 3 2 9 * ; N O - 1 4 8 1 * ; 17 5 -U .S .S .R ., T M W C , 437-43.) 2 W iln Nord, Chefgruppe La, Wirtschaftsgefüge der Wirtschafts-Inspektion Nord [Pskov], 1942, p. 22.

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practices because the area was of minor economic importance. By m id-1943 the Inspectorate could proceed to formalize the final phase of private landholding, leaving it up to the population to choose between strip, otrub, or khutor farms.1 In the area of Economic Inspectorate Centre, which had argued for a reform at an early date, a transformation was also effected with relative speed. Here, however, the change took place in substance though not in name. The Landbaugenossenschaften (co-operatives) were not to be formalized until thorough surveying could be carried out and complete rosters and maps of holdings drawn up. Actually, the communes established here provided for a strip system and individual land utilization roughly resembling the practice in ad­ jacent Belorussia and W iln Nord. In spite of the growth of the partisan movement, the economic effect was decidedly favourable; land rejected under the Soviets as too poor to be worked was now deemed arable; in some instances, the yield equalled or even exceeded the pre-war harvests despite the reduced manpower and equipment. The political effect, once again, was lost in the welter of other impressions.2 While Berlin acquiesced in the changes wrought in the institu­ tional matrix of the Soviet village in the areas of North and Centre, a related problem provoked an interminable exchange of correspond­ ence among Various German agencies. This was the plan to award priority in the assignment of private land plots to collaborators, particularly troops and police who had distinguished themselves in anti-partisan warfare. The project originated with the Army in January 1942 and in June received Hitler’s approval in principle. Even prior to their publication, the OKW implementing direct­ ives evoked heated protests from the SS and the economic agencies. In particular, Himmler insisted that as a minimum ‘ the recipient of [such] a gift must pledge himself to perpetual service ’ to the Germ ans; the agricultural staff of WiStab Ost objected to the injection of military jurisdiction into what it considered its exclusive domain : the assignment and distribution of land. While the protests of the latter were partly assuaged, partly ignored, the SS continued to object to the plan. Himmler finally decided that the whole OKW 1 Von Wrangell, ‘ Die agrarpolitischen Massnahmen im Gebiet der W iln N o rd ’ , Der Landwirtschaftsführer (Pskov), no. 2 (M ay 1943) ; W iln Nord, Chef­ gruppe La, Der Kriegsbeitrag der Landwirtschaft in Nordrussland (Pskov, 1943), pp. 24-5. 165,000 hectares were to remain strip-system farms, and over 50,000 hectares each in otrub farms (within the village) and khutors (outside the village). 2 W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Aufgaben und Leistungen' ; ‘ Materialsamm­ lung', pp. 15 4 -2 7 7 ; W iln Mitte, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Jahresbericht', June 30, 1942, W i/ID 2.70*, C R S ; Schiller, Ziele und Ergebnisse, pp. 23-6 ; Major O. W . Müller, ‘ Bericht Nr. 2 1 ', October 8, 1942, Document Occ E 33-7 * , Y IV O .

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scheme was ‘ fundamentally in error’, for the Eastern population must never get enough land to survive independently; if they did, they would have no further incentive to fight for the Germans. After several more months of negotiations, which by this time also involved the Ostministerium, and after a personal conference between Himmler and Reinecke, the head of the O KW ’s AWA, the Army finally decreed that the ‘ reward in land’ should not be given to more than 2 per cent of all collaborators per year. By then it was late summer 1943, and the entire issue was rapidly losing all practical significance.1 A special policy was adopted for the North Caucasus. Here, as a unique instance, political considerations carried weight from the beginning. Its inhabitants were to be rewarded by ‘ the creation not of agricultural communes but of private farms’. The latter, as was noted earlier, were the ‘ most effective propaganda measure’ recommended to Hitler by the Army. The actual directives adopted for the Caucasus marked a compromise between the political desi­ derata of catering to the inhabitants, and the economic arguments that the fertile Kuban area had to be exploited in a manner not unlike the Ukraine. In the richer grain areas of the north, communes were to be established with enlarged private plots, and were to be transformed into co-operatives much faster than in the Ukraine. In the pre­ dominantly pastoral mountain areas, prompt transformation into individual farms was authorized. Though formally sanctioned only in December 1942, shortly before the German withdrawal, in practice the dissolution of the kolkhozes had been tolerated and carried out months before. The Caucasus Mountaineers, singled out for preferential treatment, were given the right to possess land; until the depleted stocks were restored, cattle and horses were to be used co-operatively by groups of five to ten households. These more generous and ambitious agrarian changes helped forestall much popular resentment and in some instances provoked outright enthusiasm. Though the occupation was too brief to permit a fair assessment of the results, the experience offered telling ammunition to those arguing for greater and speedier transformation elsewhere.2 1 See the voluminous exchange of memoranda and correspondence in Himmler file 2 1 5 # ; W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La [Conference and draft decree], Ju ly 7, 1942, Document 3 1 4 - E C * ; ‘ Materialsammlung\ pp. 152-6. 2 See above, p. 247 ; W iStab Ost/VO bei O KH/GenQu, ‘ Vortragsnotiz für den Herrn Gen. Q u.’, June 29, 1942, and W iStab Ost, ‘ Durchführung der Agrarordnung im Gebiet des Nordkaukasus’ , September 24, 1942, W i/ID .403*, C R S ; Brandt, op. eit. p. 96 ; interviews G -2, G -10 , G -19 ; [Shadov,] ‘ Natsional*noe pravitel’stvo v svobodnoi Kabardino-Balkarskoi respublike v 1942 godu’ , M S 5*, pp. 4-8.

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Vox Populi Many of the local German agricultural officials had opposed a ‘ rapid’ execution of the timid and gradual reforms of February 1942. The psychological gap between them and the peasantry continued to grow, with some notable exceptions. By 1942 their predicament was publicly acknowledged. A typical La-Führer might be out of touch with higher agencies for a month or two at a time ; he might not visit each of the communes under his control more than once every few weeks. Still baffled by many local problems, dependent on a local interpreter, sometimes a Volksdeutscher, sometimes a Soviet agent, he was a quixotic ‘ pioneer of progress’ — improvising, unable to adjust to a foreign environment, exposed to partisan attacks, exploiting a poverty-stricken population, deceived by segments of the local peasantry, and unable to solve problems of a magnitude he had never before encountered.1 The complaints of the Soviet peasantry against the German LaFiihrer and commandants were so uniform that it may be worth quoting from a typical, though unusually articulate, memorandum submitted to the German authorities by a young Ukrainian : Thousands of employees of the Ostpropaganda staff use thousands of tons of paper in Berlin and on the spot to make clear to us, in verse and in pictures, how happy the Ukrainian peasant, liberated from Bolshevism, is already and what happiness lies ahead. Germany is a cultured nation in which one wears monocles and where one doesn’t wipe one’s nose with two fingers. Germany the liberator! We, Russian barbarians, must be educated ! The administration and education of the Ukrainian peasants in the village of Sakharovka, Rovnoe raion, district of Bobrinets, is entrusted to Commandant Schiffer. This is how this ‘ educator’ from cultured Germany operates. . . . He leads a parasitic existence at the expense of other men’s labour. He distributes boxes in the ear and whippings — and that, not only to those who fail to doff their hats in time but to anyone who happens to cross his path. . . . In addition to the cattle and fowl slaughtered and made away with, he at present possesses six horses, two cows, five pigs, five sheep, fifteen geese, eight beehives, three foxes, one marten. All this has been stolen from the peasants. . . . On the average 28 peasants work for this sybarite in addition to those employed on his plot. . . . How is this true socialism, true culture ? Pictures about ‘ the new agrarian order’ no longer make us laugh. If all this is not promptly 1 See Jürgen Stock, ‘ Der deutsche La-Führer als Pionier des Fortschritts’, Deutsche Agrarpolitik (Berlin), i, no. 7-8 (April-M ay 1943), 234-6 ; Paul Werner, Ein schweizer Journalist sieht Russland (Olten : Walter, 1942), p. 143 ; Deutsche Volkswirtschaft (Berlin), xii (1943), 6 1 1 - 1 2 ; Der Landwirtschaftsführer, 19 42-43.

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changed . . . the front lines will be shortened more frequently. Schiffers decide the outcome of the war.1

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Actual conditions varied widely according to the whims of local German officials and the ingenuity or initiative of the peasants under their rule. In some areas the Germans succeeded n nominally dissolving the kolkhozes while persuading the villagers to band together ‘ voluntarily’ and keep the commune ‘ until the war was over’ . In other communities where the Gemeinwirtschaft was formally maintained, the peasants secretly worked it as if it had been partitioned into private holdings. And yet, with all variations, the pattern of attraction and repulsion was strikingly similar everywhere. Disappointment followed hard on hopeful anticipation. In the absence of a meaningful agrarian reform, the Economic Inspectorate for the Ukraine reported by December 1941 that ‘ in recent weeks a certain drop of morale has been noticeable’ . It was compounded by other facets of occupation life. ‘ The existing food stocks have been eaten up ; the compulsory deliveries of cattle have their effect. The onset of winter . . . works in the same direction. The supply of consumer and daily goods to the countryside is utterly insufficient. The rural population especially lacks fuel and matches.’ 2 Substantially similar reports came from other areas. The impact of the agrarian reform of February 1942 was variously reported, but the prevalent tenor was one of momentary hope followed by a groundswell of distrust. The indigenous population [it was reported from Army Group South Rear Area] cannot reconcile itself to the idea that the ‘ notoriously omniscient Germans in this case require, as an exceptional matter, such protracted preliminary studies’. On the contrary, as the result of the period of uncertainty, a good deal of distrust has arisen, which has been nurtured by enemy propaganda (rumours of an allegedly impending agrarian reform by Stalin). . . . What would have been accepted as a gift, sight unseen, in the summer of 1941, is now being examined in detail with extreme criticism. The implementing directives frequently narrow down the terms of the Agrarian Decree, which had earlier been made known to the peasants. . . . Though they make no secret of the fact that they would much prefer to see the land assigned to them as private property, for the time being the peasants work together to the best of their ability even in the co-operatives.3 ' ‘ Bericht über die Ausschreitungen des Landwirtschaftsführers Schiffer im Gebiet Bobrinez, Generalbezirk Nikolajew’, Document Occ E 4 - i #, Y IV O . 2 Ruin Ukraine, ‘ Lagebericht’ , December 2, 10 41, W i/ID .78*, C R S . ’ Abwehrgruppe Süd, Abwehrkommando II, ‘ Durchführung der Agrarordnung im Bereich S ü d ’ , April 27, 1942, W i/ID .40";*, C R S .

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Farther north, the situation was not unsimilar. ‘ The agrarian reform decree signed by Minister Rosenberg was generally received with reserve since the peasants were consistently of the opinion that the new communes did not significantly differ from the previous kolkhozes.’ 1 One of the major sources of grievance was the continued use of the Soviet ‘ workday’ [trudoden] system of accounting. Another was the unpredictability of German requisitioning and the peasants’ inability to count on any part of the harvest as ‘ their own’ . In those areas, on the other hand, where the partition had proceeded further, the satisfaction of the property instinct provided at least some incentive towards voluntary farm work. It might be said that the kolkhoz-type commune was not considered a marked improve­ ment, while the enlargement of the household plot and especially the establishment of co-operatives with individual holdings met with widespread approval — though even here many grievances remained. In the Ukraine, the Wirtschaftsstab found, the population ‘ cannot warm up to the commune, while the co-operative evokes more approval. This is due above all to the continued use of the trudoden’ in the communes and to the absence of control over one’s harvest because of compulsory delivery norms. In part, the peasants seek to escape the compulsion of the commune by banding together in small groups of households which thus form independent economic units.’ In the northern areas, where the co-operatives and private holdings were more prevalent, on the other hand, ‘ the peasants work weekdays and Sundays alike, from early morning until late into the night. They help each other with the few horses in model co-operation. With love and care, houses are being repaired, barns fixed, and gardens fenced in.’ Indeed Schiller himself reported that ‘ the frequently expressed fear that the Russian peasant no longer possesses any initiative has thus not been borne out’.12 Though not all practice was so idyllic, the results suggested clearly that the widespread division of land, livestock, and equipment (even where co-operative use continued), the abolition of compulsory work norms, and the sanction of rural self-government, even on a limited scale, were mighty factors attracting the peasantry to the German side. Indeed, in those areas where German control was minimal — in individual villages far from the highways and rail­ 1 W iln Mitte, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Jahresbericht*, p. 22. 2 W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Landwirtschaft*, June 20, 1942, E A P 99/36*, C R S ; W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Rückblick 1942*, and O K V R Schiller, report, August 7, 1942, ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 152, 376 ; W iln Mitte, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Jahresbericht*, p. 24.

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roads, on the fringes of partisan-controlled territory, or in districts of self-government such as among the Kuban Cossacks and the Kaminskii Brigade — the kolkhoz system was invariably abolished, with unquestionably favourable effects on popular morale.1 The Carrot and the Whip The implementation of the reform was soon followed by several developments which contributed to the deterioration of material conditions and of pro-German sentiment in the countryside. The prolongation of the war meant a tougher German policy, with constantly increased delivery quotas on agricultural products and, most fateful of all, the forced labour programme. Hitler personally ordered the transplanting of millions of able-bodied men and women from the East to work in industry, mining, and agriculture in the Reich.12 The new drive spread bitterness and fear among the peasantry and drove rural youth into the partisan movement as virtually the only way to escape deportation to Germany. On the other hand, it sharply reduced available manpower in the villages, depriving agriculture of its most capable workers. Military and civil government and economic staffs were naturally reluctant to see local agricultural production crippled. Here was a problem — never resolved — of priorities in the allocation of man­ power. By mid-winter of 1942-3 the manpower shortage in the East was so acute that any further conscription was bound to hurt agri­ cultural output. In discussing the matter with the military govern­ ment commanders, Rosenberg recognized ‘ the difficulties which automatically appeared in the fulfilment of the fundamental demands of the Reich’ because of the conflict between maximum shipment of labour to Germany and the greatest possible utilization of manpower on the spot.3 In practice, the forced labour programme prevailed over the protests of agronomists and administrators. Agriculture, already under-manned, had to manage with even fewer hands, and those who remained were frightened and antagonized by the corralling of their fellow-peasants for shipment to the Reich. At the same time, the increased demands on the German food economy compelled Hitler to ‘ squeeze the East’ even drier. Goeb­ bels, who had become more realistic after the first winter crisis, 1 See Pozdniakov and Karov, ‘ Respublika Zueva’ , Novyi Zhurnal (New York), xxix, 189-204 ; V B -M , April 23, 1942 ; Alexander Dallin, ‘ The Kaminsky Brigade’ , Harvard University, Russian Research Center, 1952. 2 For a discussion of German forced labour policy, see Chapter X X below, 3 Protocol, December 18, 1942 ; ‘ Materialsammlung’, pp. 158-9.

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noted with some dismay in the spring of 1942 that the Führer has done everything possible to avoid [cutting food rations in Germany]. Even now he will make every effort to insure greater supplies of food, especially from the Ukraine. But, Goebbels added, I don’t share the Führer’s optimism that we shall succeed within a reason­ able time in getting worthwhile supplies out of the Ukraine. We lack the manpower, the organization, and especially the transportation. . . .* Hitler, however, proceeded with his new plans. If necessary, he would ‘ take the last cow from the Ukraine before the homeland is forced to starve’. Indignantly he waved aside all those who warned against over-optimism regarding agricultural surpluses in the East.12 Goring similarly insisted that ‘ the German people have too little to cat ’ and maintained, as he had in the first months of the campaign, that in each of the occupied territories the people are overfed, while among our people famine stalks. The [German officials in the East] have, God knows, not been sent there to care for the welfare of the peoples entrusted to them but to obtain the utmost for the survival of the German people.3 The upshot, not surprisingly, wras increased German demands for food from the East, a decision which widened the chasm between rulers and ruled and cancelled most of, if not all, the favourable effects of the agrarian ‘ new order’ . To many of the original critics of the reform, this estrangement was an inescapable product of the political inadequacy of the German approach to the problem of Soviet agriculture. The promulgation of the Agrarerlass did not quiet these critics. While Koch and his subordinates continued to sabotage this modest ‘ reform’, these critics advocated broader and speedier changes. If only for reasons of expediency (as Professor Hans-Jürgen Seraphim argued, for instance), ‘ it is necessary to make the transfer [of land] in such a manner as to convince the peasantry that a change is really desired [by Germany] and does not remain a mere promise for the future’ .4 1 The Goebbels Diaries (Garden City : Doubleday, 1948), p. 132. 2 H. Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1951), pp. 150, 180 (entries for M ay 10 and July 9, 1942). 3 ‘ Stenographischer Bericht über die Besprechung des Reichsmarschalls Göring . . . über die Ernährungslage’ , August 6, 1942, Document 17 0 -U S S R , T M W C , xxix, 385-6, 423. Von Hassell noted that allegedly Göring had said ‘ the people in the occupied countries can feed on Cossack saddles’ . ( The Von Hassell Diaries [Garden City : Doubleday, 1947], p. 267 [entry for September 4, 1942].) 4 Hans-Jürgen Seraphim, ‘ Struktur und Leistungsfähigkeit der Landwirtschaft im Ostraum’ , Verein deutscher Wirtschaftswissenschafter, Osteuropäische Wirt­ schaft sfragen (Leipzig : Meiner, 1944), pp. 63-76.

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By late summer 1942 the effects of German practice were manifest, and criticism multiplied. Rosenberg’s representative with Army Group Centre reported that ‘ the announcement of the [high] delivery quotas for grain, potatoes, cattle, etc., has provoked restless­ ness and, in part, dissatisfaction’. After touring the East, Schiller argued that ‘ elbow room must be left to give the industrious [peasant] more than the lazy’ in order to provide greater incentive. Even higher delivery quotas would be met if the peasants’ sense of fair play was not violated and if they were assured of a larger share of the harvest by producing more. With an eye to Koch’s tactics, Schiller insisted: ‘ Not that collection is best which demands the most, but that which manages to get the most from the peasants’ . Bräutigam attributed the decline of morale in the Ukraine to the slowness in effecting the agrarian reform. In a letter to Riecke he urged speedier reorganization into communes, more extensive in­ crease in private plots, and intensification of propaganda exploiting the reform : its dilatory institution had produced nothing, he exclaimed, but grist for the Soviet propaganda mill.1 In the SS empire, Michael Akhmeteli, the director of the Wannsee-Institut, renewed his criticism of the reform. After a trip through the Ukraine, he submitted a report replete with accusations of incompetence against the Rosenberg staff and suggesting a number of further reforms. Gottlob Berger, to whom the report was for­ warded through SS channels, indignantly labelled it ‘ more than dangerous for the security of the state’. ‘ The Ukrainians must know’, he pontificated, ‘ that we are the victors and the masters. During the war they must obey. What happens after the war is no concern of theirs at all.’ He had no patience with Akhmeteli’s suggestion of letting the people run the villages themselves, and would gladly have transferred the ‘ professor’ permanently to the East.2 Perhaps the strongest pressure for more drastic and politically motivated change came from certain circles within the Army, and especially in military government. As the Intelligence Officer of Second Army reported in late 1942, . . . time and again it is borne out that a just, firm, and progressive implementation of the agrarian policy — i.e. partition of land — is at present the only material means at our disposal to exert a profound influence 1 Schiller, ‘ Grundsätze der deutschen Erfassungspolitik in den besetzten Ostgebieten’ , August 5, 1942, W i/ID 2.34 7 *, C R S ; Müller, op. cit. ; Bräutigam to Riecke, July 20, 1942, W i/ID .77*, C R S ; Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 335 - 6 . 2 Schellenberg to Berger, December 22, 1942, and Berger to Schellenberg, January 6, 1943, Document N O -30 22*.

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on the population and to improve their living conditions in at least one respect.1 In October 1942 some forty General Staff and military govern­ ment officers attended a conference on German agrarian policy, held at Vinnitsa, under the chairmanship of the sensible Colonel von Altenstadt. A number of lectures, including one by Schiller, were delivered, whereupon Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, Hitler’s would-be assassin, took the floor to flail German policy in an im­ passioned half-hour impromptu speech. The Reich, he exclaimed, was sowing a hatred that the next generation would reap ; the key to victory was winning the sympathy and support of the people who lived in the E a st! 12 The same spirit was reflected, though in more moderate tones, at the famous Army-Ostministerium conference held in December. The spokesman for Army Group North insisted that delivery quotas had been set too high and that no more than 60 to 70 per cent could be fulfilled; in the Centre area, the troops requisitioned too recklessly ; often, the protocol read, ‘ the peasant has had to surrender his horse, his cattle and even his last cow ’ — precisely what Hitler had sanctioned. The minutes recommended that if the peasants perform and harvest more, they must keep more for them­ selves. In the realization of the agrarian reform, one must proceed more generously; otherwise the effect on the rural population will be entirely absent.3 The effect of this rather outspoken appeal has been discussed in another connection. Hitler told the military to stay out of political affairs, and Rosenberg was ordered not to meddle in military matters. One more attempt at change from the very top was beaten off, but the mood of criticism persisted. A few days later von Altenstadt wrote another blistering indictment of the Untermensch policy, in particular of the halting application of the Agrarerlass. He urged speedy action ; ‘ in view of the situation in the East, no time must be lost’ .4 A few weeks later several new directives gave special attention to agriculture. At the end of January 1943 Wirtschaftsstab Ost 1 A O K 2, Ic, ‘ Zusammenfassender Bericht Nr. io über die Stimmung der Zivilbevölkerung der befreiten Gebiete’, December 13, 1942, Document N O K W 2776 *. 2 Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit (Munich : Hermann Rinn, 1953), pp. 146-7. 3 Protocol, December 18, 1942. 4 O KH /GenStdH /Gen.Q u./Abt.Kr.-Verw ., ‘ Aufzeichnung über die Ostfrage’ , January 3, 1943, Document N G -3 4 I 5 * .

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ordered better work and higher yield to be ‘ rewarded by larger receipts in kind or bonuses for the peasants’. The following week it reiterated that the focal problem of agricultural production was ‘ the proper treatment of the people’. Care must therefore be taken that the working population in the countryside is treated decently and justly and that its honour is not injured too much by whipping, chicanery, or similar measures.1 The same month, in the wake of Stalingrad, Field-Marshal von Manstein ordered a wider application of the reform in the area of his Army Group South,2 while Field-Marshal von Kleist, as was shown earlier, promulgated his far-reaching policy directives for the treat­ ment of the civilian population. Over the bitter protests of Schiller and Riecke, for whom he was ‘going too far too fast’ , Kleist ordered the transformation of more communes into co-operatives and the assignment of more private plots. The delivery quotas for agricultural produce [he continued] must, as a rule, not exceed 80 per cent of production and never exceed those under the Bolsheviks. . . . Under no circumstances shall the last cow, hog, sheep, etc., be taken from a peasant. The arguments criss-crossed in curious fashion. Riecke attacked Koch’s refusal to support the reform because he feared it would react unfavourably on Germany’s food supply. At the same time he joined Schiller in attacking Kleist’s directive and forwarded it on for Hitler’s direct attention. At a time of crisis, he maintained, one could not promise not to take the last cow. Now Riecke, who had specifically condemned Koch’s labelling the Ukrainians as ‘ helots’, was himself branded by Kleist as an addict of the Helotentheorie.3 It was again a case of too little and too late. With Stalingrad a reality and total war proclaimed in Berlin, and with fissures widening within the fabric of Behemoth, with Allied forces massing in the west for an attack on the Continent, and the civilians in the East bitter and angry, Berlin could no longer win the support that it had scorned two years earlier. Gradually an air of pessimism swept over agrarian policy-makers. In 1942 Hitler had vented his anger against all ‘ defeatist talk’ about the small quantities of food which could be gotten from the East. Now, in mid-1943 the Berlin press was 1 W iStab Ost, ‘ Behandlung der Bevölkerung’ , February 8, 1943, W i/ID 2 .1 1 9 1 * , C R S . 2 Von Manstein, ‘ Behandlung der Zivilbevölkerung im Operationsgebiet’, February 26, 1943, W i/ID 2.20*, C R S. 3 Von Kleist, ‘ Behandlung der Zivilbevölkerung im Operationsgebiet’ , February 17, 1943» E A P 9 9 /114 5 *, C R S ; Document Rosenberg-19, T M W C , xli, 194-201 ; Brandt, op. eit. pp. 6 7 1-4 ; Document 3000-PS, T M W C , xxxi, 632-5.

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writing of the ‘ latent crisis’ in Ukrainian agriculture.1 Even Herbert Backe, the mainstay of German economic egocentrism, admitted confidentially that half the battle was lost. He distributed copies of a lecture given by Professor Emil Woermann, the expert head of the Berlin Institute for European Agricultural Research, as a document of ‘ basic importance’. Its author found that, ‘ owing to loss of territory and decline in the harvest, the surplus from occupied Russia will be smaller during the current year. . . .’ 12 Many advocates of ‘ enlightened self-interest’ had to conclude that it was too late. From Possession to Property As exploitation of the East became more intense, there were some further efforts to ‘ appease’ the population. By early 1943 a new crisis loomed and a search began for some fresh concessions to conciliate the peasantry and obtain its support. Since the procla­ mation of the agrarian decree, some economists and politicians had pressed for one additional benefit: recognition of the peasants’ landholdings in the commune (and their own garden plots) not merely as ‘ possession and usufruct’ but as outright private property. The opposition to this proposal had been formidable. Himmler and Koch had vetoed it lest it open a wedge for the creation of a politically conscious and demanding class of farmers who might later impede German control and settlement. In the end Hitler had decided that no private ownership was to be granted until after the war, and he rejected a plan, submitted through the OKH in the summer of 1942, for recognition of private property rights. By 1943 things were growing steadily worse. Just as the SS was, by 1944, to reverse itself in the field of political warfare, now, in 1943, Göring, Backe, and even Hitler were sufficiently perturbed to endorse any step that held forth the promise of material relief. By mid-February 1943 the economic staffs of WiStab Ost and the Rosenberg Ministry had drafted a new decree that would give the former kolkhoz members permanent ownership of the land they held in the new co-operatives. On April 24, Rosenberg forwarded the draft to the Führer with the endorsement of OKW, OKH, and Göring’s Four-Year Plan.3 1 Deutsche Volkswirtschaft, xii, 6 11. 2 Backe to Rosenberg, May 13, 1943, and Emil Woermann, ‘ Die Ernährungs­ lage und die Voraussetzungen zur Erhaltung der Produktionsleistungen der deutschen Landwirtschaft*, Document N G -7 6 2 *. 3 ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 277-8 ; interviews G -2, G -6 ; Rosenberg to Hitler, April 24, 1943, E A P 99/1002*, C R S . Actually, Rosenberg had raised the question in his letter to Hitler as early as January 1943. (Rosenberg to Hitler, January 16, 1943, Document cxliv-433*, C D JC .)

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h

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Fighting against the proposed decree, Koch brought his case to Bormann and Goring, only to lose out. Hitler’s personal approval was secured, and late in May 1943 Rosenberg signed the ‘ Declaration on the Introduction of Peasant Landed Property’. All land previously held in ‘ perpetual use’ could now become the property of the peasant who used i t : ‘ All who toil on the land are entitled to owner­ ship’. Special provision was made for assigning holdings to evacuees, exiles, refugees, soldiers, and prisoners of war. The decree concluded with a flourish : The distribution of landed property constitutes a recognition of active co-operation of the rural population in the tasks of agricultural production. It obligates the peasantry for the future to strain all efforts for the reconstruction of agriculture in the occupied Eastern territories so as to contribute its share thereby to the final defeat of Bolshevism.1 Of little more than symbolic significance, this measure offered a real opportunity to the German propaganda machine.2 However, all sources, including German officials on the spot, agreed that its effect was virtually nil. Pious exhortations and flowery promises could scarcely convince a villager who had lost his son, his livestock, and the roof over his head. The real world around him spoke more eloquently than decrees and propaganda. The declaration remained largely on paper. Its translation into concrete ‘ implementing directives’ was stymied by the combined opposition of its enemies within the Reich. 1 RM fdbO., ‘ Deklaration über die Einführung bäuerlichen Grundeigentums’ , June 3, 1943, Verordnungsblatt, ii (1943), 83 ; ‘ Materialsammlung’ , p. 278 ; interviews G -2, G - 1 1 . 2 It was typical, however, that even at so critical a juncture Riecke publicly insisted that the Reich had to remain ‘ the centre of gravity’ of European agri­ cultural output. (Riecke, ‘ Nahrungsfreiheit bedeutet politische Freiheit’, Ostland [Riga], ii, no. 1 [July 1943], 3-4 ) Another official explanation argued defensively that private farms could not be established everywhere on occupied soil because of war conditions, because the Soviet peasants had ‘ unlearned initiative’ , and because the Reich had to maintain a ‘ guiding’ hand over their work. (Fritz Zierke, ‘ Vom Kolchos zur freien Scholle’, V B -M , Ju ly 24, 1943.) The same theme was even crudely expressed in articles addressed to the Eastern population (e.g. Belaruskaia Hazeta [Minsk], June 12, 1943). A new Russian-language monthly was started under German tutelage for the ‘ free tiller’ in the East. Adorned with a full-page portrait of Hitler, it editorialized that ‘ . . . this word, “ property” , contains a deep meaning and represents the fulfilment of our sweetest hopes. . . . The German government enables us to enjoy the benefits of the soil of our liberated fatherland.’ It added, however, that ‘ this is no time to yield to vain reflections ; this is the time to fight and work’ . (Editorial, ‘ Nasha zadacha’ , Vol'nyi pakhar’ [Pskov], no. 1 [August 1943], p. 2.) Others sought to depict the measure as a logical outgrowth of the reform of 1942, explaining that the delay had been needed to accumulate experience and to overcome slowly the ‘ Judeo-Bolshevik’ heritage. (Schiller, ‘ Bauern auf eigenem Boden’, Deutsche Ost-Korrespondenz [Berlin], no. 8 [June 3, 1943], pp. 1-3.)

362

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

The key to the sabotage of the decree was Koch.1 Even prior to its adoption he had insisted that it threatened to create a class of Ukrainian landowners. Now, choosing as a target the clause about fostering ‘ rational’ land utilization through preventing the atomiza­ tion of farm holdings, he declared that the decree amounted to introducing a German-style Erbhof, a hereditary farm suited for German Bauern but not for the helots of the East. Koch insisted that no native should be allowed to own more than one hectare of land, and that the implications of the decree were politically ominous for the Reich. After some futile attempts to mollify his stand — more vigorous after the partial political victory he scored over Rosenberg at their meeting with Hitler on May 19 — the Ostministerium and Wirtschaftsstab Ost proceeded to draft the ‘ im­ plementing directives’ and completed them before the end of June. Meanwhile, Koch had confronted Rosenberg and Schiller, then touring the Ukraine, with new hysterical outbursts of protest.. He threatened to avail himself of the right, just granted him, to appeal directly to Hitler whenever he seriously disagreed with the Ostminister. After a series of further conferences, Koch sought to approach the Führer through Bormann as well as through Lammers. He also attempted to enlist Himmler’s help in order to throw the weight of the SS against the implementing of the decree, cleverly playing on the fact that the SS had not been consulted in the drafting of the order. For a moment, Riecke, Schiller, Leibbrandt and the rest of the Rosenberg staff, in spite of their vacillations, were thrown on the defensive by Koch’s accusations of ‘ weakness and sabotage’ of German interests. Riecke reiterated that the declaration was aimed at restoring peasant faith in Germany and thus increasing productivity. As for the declaration providing for an Eastern Erbhof or obstructing future German settlement, ‘ it would always be possible after the war to free the desired area for settlement by expropriation legis­ lation and resettlement measures’. For once Koch found little support. Bormann was, as usual, bored by economic problems and was perhaps too shrewd an operator to intercede with Hitler so soon again. The Army and, more powerfully, the war economy agencies rallied solidly behind the decree; to the extent that they were 1 The following summary is based on several sources dealing in considerable detail with the lengthy and complex arguments involved, which present a casestudy in the tug-of-war among conflicting Nazi agencies : ‘ Materialsammlung,, pp. 278-82d ; ‘ Deklaration über das landwirtschaftliche Grundeigentum’ , Himmler file 2 1 5 * ; W iStab Ost, Ia, ‘ Aktenvermerk über die Chefbesprechung am 2 3 .7 .4 3 ’ , July 25, 1943, W i/ID .8 1 #, C R S ; Schiller, letter to author, April 25, 1953. For the repercussions on the Leibbrandt resignation, see above, p. 174.

CH. xvii

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363

consulted, the Foreign and Propaganda Ministries did likewise. Even Himmler did not come out for Koch since Berger, through whom he was operating, had worked out a compromise which was satisfactory to the SS but not to Koch. Months passed in futile exchanges of memoranda and vitupera­ tions. Finally, with ‘ all Party and State organs’ convinced of the propriety of the ‘ implementing directives’ , Lammers was persuaded to write Koch, on September 24, 1943, that at that juncture he could not justify bothering Hitler with this matter since in principle the Führer had approved the decree. If this appeared to be a victory for the anti-Koch forces, it was an empty one indeed; though the issue did not go to Hitler for decision, the Wirtschaftsstab, Ost­ ministerium, and SS agreed to stick to their draft but to postpone its formal adoption ‘ indefinitely’ . In practice, the property decree died a quiet death. As the Wirtschaftsstab reviewed the situation, the time for action had passed. In the meantime [it wrote in retrospect], the military situation had so far deteriorated that the proper time for the proclamation of the im­ plementing directives was gone. . . . For lack of directives the property decree could not be exploited propagandistically either. The last and outward trump of [German] agrarian policy — the gift of land to the soil-hungry peasants — was played out uselessly, and the subsequent deadly hushing up of the decree, which had been blown up initially in connection with the Minister’s trip, could not but arouse the impression of dishonesty [of German intentions].1

The fiasco of the property decree marked the end of German agrarian policy in the occupied East. What followed was little more than a desperate salvage operation that descended to wanton plunder. Elaborate plans were still being made in 1944 for converting more communes into co-operatives; new and larger ‘ premiums ’ were to be paid to peasants who overfulfilled their delivery quotas; and some few private farms were actually set up. Here and there a German official risked his neck and visited the villages to present the peasants with a swastika-adorned certificate of ownership or a letter of commendation. More and more, however, the Soviet 1 ‘ Materialsammlung’ , p. 282. In Belorussia, Gottberg issued ‘ implementing directives' on his own, as did some of the army area commanders. See ‘ Verord­ nung über die Landeinrichtung', January 5, 1944, Generalkommissar für Weissruthenien, Amtsblatt / Uradovy ves'nik, iv (1944), no. 3, 67-8. In the Baltic area, over 20 per cent of the land was actually ‘ reprivatized' by the end of 1943.

364

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

advance and the spread of the partisans reduced the cultivated area over which the Germans still had control. * German officials were dying from road mines and partisan bullets, and the delivery quotas remained unfulfilled.1 The German order of the day now became total evacuation. Three years earlier Stalin had ordered a scorched-earth policy. Now it was his turn to reap the whirlwind of destruction. From the spring of 1943 on, German agencies were ordered to salvage cattle, grain, agricultural equipment, and peasants by moving them westwards out of the path of the advancing Red Army. As the rich Donbas was being abandoned, Himmler wrote his satrap in Kiev : General of the Infantry Stapf [head of WiStab Ost] has received special orders regarding the Donets Basin. I instruct you to co-operate with all your strength. . . . Not one person, no cattle, no quintal of grain, no railway track must remain behind. . . . The enemy must find a country totally burned and destroyed.2 A few days later, by direction of the Führer, Goring issued a similar top-secret order: in the areas threatened by the Soviet advance, ‘ ail agricultural products, means of production, and machines of enterprises serving agriculture and the food industry are to be removed. . . . The bases of agricultural production . . . are to be destroyed. The population engaged in agriculture and in the food industry is to be transported westwards. . . .’ 3 While the top cadres of the Chefgruppe La retired to write the history of their experiences in the East and draft a detailed blueprint for the ‘ next occupation’, the retreating Army went on a rampage, leaving utter devastation in its wake. German officials themselves reported that . . . the behaviour of the German troops was unfortunately bad. In contrast to the Russians, they broke open the barns at a moment when the front was still far away. Grain, including a great quantity of seed, was seized in considerable amounts. . . . . . . Hogs and fowl were killed and taken along in unjustifiable numbers. Unfortunately one simply cannot write down everything else that was taken. . . .4 In these last months of occupation, there was no more ‘ agrarian policy’, only chaos, frenzy, and arbitrary plunder. 1 See Leyser to Rosenberg, June 17, 1943, Document 265-P S, T M W C , xxv, 3 1 9 - 2 3 ; ‘ Materialsammlung>, passim. 2 Himmler to Prützmann, September 3, 1943, Document N O -007*. 3 Goring, decree, September 7, 1943, Document 3 1 7 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 308. 4 Reports received by Generalkommissar Zhitomir, November-December 1943, Document 288-PS, T M W C , xxv, 324-9.

on. xvii

Germany and Eastern Agriculture : II

36 5

The Balance Of the occupied area of roughly 400,000 square miles with a population of over 65 million, little more than half was subjected to systematic exploitation by the Germans for any considerable period of time.1 This area, to be sure, included some of the richest surplus grain areas of the Soviet Union and had a predominantly rural population. From the outset the German officials faced a variety of serious difficulties. The shortage of manpower — a result of military service, Soviet evacuation, and German seizure — was matched by the destruction and evacuation of agricultural machinery by the Soviet authorities. The lack of seeds, fertilizer, and technicians and the breakdown of the collection and distribution system multi­ plied the difficulties, as did the revamping of local and regional administration. Some measures were undertaken by the Germans to relieve or solve these problems, not so much to help Eastern agriculture as to make it produce for German needs. A minor offset to the basic picture of ruthless exploitation, the so-called Ostackerprogramm represented an extensive effort, by importing supplies and equipment from the Reich, to alleviate the difficulties of Eastern agriculture. In the three years of occupation, a total of 15,000 freight cars of agricultural implements and machinery, valued at some 172 million marks, were shipped to the East. They included 7000 tractors, 20,000 generators, 250,000 steel ploughs, and 3 million scythe blades. In addition, several thousand bulls, cows, pigs, and stallions were shipped in to replenish breeding stock there.12 While the value of these imports may have been exaggerated by German analysts, they did contribute to reviving production in the occupied areas — so much so that certain elements in Germany considered them a ‘ betrayal ’ of the hard-pressed Reich. In the last analysis, the German order of the day was not the ‘ humanitarian’ revival of agriculture but immediate and extreme exploitation, with special emphasis on a few crops of crucial significance to the German war economy, primarily grain.3 While initial plans had called for vast shipments from the East to the Reich, the prolongation of the war placed greater emphasis on the feeding of the armies at the front; by sharpening the German food crisis, the war made it 1 These territories reached their eastern limit at a line running roughly from Narva to Briansk, Khar’kov and Rostov. T h e remaining areas, such as the Kuban, North Caucasus, Tula, Orel, and Stalingrad provinces, were occupied for too short a period of time or were too devastated to be thoroughly exploited. 2 See Brandt, op. cit. pp. 14 2-3 ; and ‘ Materialsammlung’ , pp. 152, 158. 3 An exception was made for the SS-directed efforts at producing rubber plants. The results of experimentation with kok-sagyz, though interesting, remained disappointing.

G.R.R.---2 B

366

Problems and Practice

l ’T . I l l

necessary to strip the occupied areas even more systematically. Original German plans had called for the procurement of five to ten million tons of grain a year. With the failure to seize the grainproducing areas rapidly and to occupy them intact, estimates had had to be cut back. In the first months the process of collection was haphazard and arbitrary; the only purpose was to requisition as much as possible. After the economic agencies had moved in, for the first year ‘ the leading principle of collection was “ assurance of food supply for the Army, some shipments to the Reich, and setting aside seed reserves” . Only after the fulfilment of these demands could a trifling amount be left to the peasants for their own use.’ In substance, the principle of total delivery was made mandatory. Though, in practice, it was impossible to collect the entire harvest (except locally consumed food and fodder), the very announcement of this goal and the attempt to implement it were strikingly remini­ scent of the disastrous effect which the same policy had had on Soviet agriculture in 1918-20. Thereupon the desired quotas were set arbitrarily in Berlin, without realistic reference to the actual potential. Sometimes quotas previously set were suddenly raised by special levies imposed by the agricultural administration, again on the basis of German demands rather than of the peasants’ ability to fulfil them, which was in turn decreased by the German labour draft and the encroachment of the Red partisans.1 Only in the fall of 1942 did the Wirtschaftsstab in Berlin yield to Schiller’s argument that economically and politically the system was most unsatisfactory and that ‘ it was useful to give the peasant a stake in greater yield and greater harvest’ . A staggered system was now adopted, providing in substance for a shift from total delivery obligation to taxes in kind fixed in advance [Festumlagen] and for leaving the balance of the crop to the peasants. In practice, Berlin 1 Brandt, op. cit. pp. 10 8 -12 ; Schiller, ‘ Grundsätze’, op. cit. ; W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Aufgaben und Leistungen', ch. ii. The following extract from a conference of August 1942 reveals the manner in which demands were at times determined : G o r in g : Now let us see what Russia can supply. I believe, Riecke, that we must succeed in getting two million tons of bread and fodder grain out of the total Russian area. R iec k e : That we can get. G o rin g : In that case, we must extract three million, not counting the Army. R iec k e : No, what’s up near the front goes entirely to the Wehrmacht. G oring : Then you bring in two million [to Germany]. R ieck e : No. G o ring : Then i j million. R iec k e : Yes.

G öring : Good. (Document 17 0 -U S S R , T M W C , xxxix, 406.) For Riecke’s testimony regarding this exchange, see Case X L Engl, transcript, pp. 15982-5.

CH. xvii

Germany and Eastern Agriculture: II

367

failed to abide by this promise but persisted in raising over-all quotas and introducing significant variations, for instance, according to the size of the crop and the number of workers available. The complexity of the directives led many La-Führer to continue their practice of ignoring instructions they did not understand or agree with, and of extracting as much as they could from those villages which obeyed their orders. For the individual peasant household, conditions 'of compulsory delivery to the state were not uniformly better or worse than under Soviet rule. Variations in both Soviet and German collection quotas and practices were too great to permit easy comparison. In terms of German demands, the peasant was hardly better off than previously. At the peak of the occupation, the Germans set the delivery quota (after subtracting for the seed reserve) at about twothirds of the gross crop — a higher share than the Soviet pre-war average ; it has been estimated that a family of three needed a gross grain yield of over 800 kilograms per hectare to have an adequate food supply after making its deliveries to the state.1 The delivery quotas for livestock and dairy products were particularly unreason­ able, being both higher than Soviet demands and often physically impossible of fulfilment. On the other hand, Soviet collection had, in practice, been far more efficient than the German. As a result, peasants in the German-held areas were often able to hide larger stocks than before the w ar; this was particularly true in 1941-2. Later on, German ‘ combing’ expeditions sought to seize the re­ maining grain supplies, but in all probability concealed reserves remained substantial, until Soviet partisans in turn raided and carried off the balance. The amounts of food obtained, while considerable, fell far short of what the Germans had expected. Some of the objective diffi­ culties were overcome as time passed. However, only three-quarters of the pre-war acreage was under cultivation, and the average yield — with manpower, machinery, and artificial fertilizer sharply cur­ tailed — remained below the pre-war harvests in spite of greater individual incentive and effort.2 1 Brandt, op. cit. p. 109. The system in effect in 1943 provided that in the Ukraine, for instance, for a grain harvest of 8 17 kilograms per hectare, 506 kg. be delivered if there were from 40 to 50 tillers, and 542 kg. if there were from 15 to 19. 2 Thus in the Ukraine an area that had an average yield per hectare of about 1000 kilograms in the late ’thirties, yielded 680 kg. in 1942 under the communes, but recovered to 850 kg. in 1943 when co-operatives were established, with further improvement in prospect. In 1942 the average delivery to the Germans out of these amounts came to 520 kg. in the Ukraine (as compared to 370 kg. in the North). (See WiStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Aufgaben und Leistungen’, ch. i; W iln. Nord, Chefgruppe La, Kriegsbeitrag, p. 4.)

368

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

Most of the food which Germany procured served to feed the armies in the East. Several million soldiers obtained most of their bread, meat, potatoes, and eggs from the land they lived and fought on : they received over four million tons of grain, two million tons of potatoes, close to 800,000 eggs, over 300,000 tons of vegetables and pulses, and over 400,000 tons of meat.1 Only a small share of the produce went to feed the German civilian population at home. Given a total German annual crop of about 23 million tons (or about 30 million, including the areas taken over by the Reich elsewhere in Europe), the amount of grain sent to Germany from the East — reported by different statistical computations at between 1-2 and i-8 million tons for the total three-year period, or between 400,000 and 600,000 tons per year — was little more than a trickle. The value of such imports, of course, far exceeded what Germany invested in Eastern agriculture, much as some critics attempted to describe the efforts as a ‘ rat-hole’ operation.2 1 See Annex to this chapter, p. 373 below. During the first year of the war, local supply satisfied the following percentage of Arm y needs in the area, with the balance, if any, supplied by the Reich :

i

S outh

C entre

N orth

100% 100 50 50

60% 65

80% 85 100 70

11

Bread (grains)

i Meat Fats Potatoes

80 90

2 ‘ Materialsammlung’ , p. 158 ; Brandt, op. cit. p. 147. The value of agri­ cultural products imported into the Reich and delivered to the Army was officially computed for the period through June 1943 ; no comparable data are available for the final year, but estimates can be made from the quantities delivered (p. 406 below).

(In millions of R M )

1--------------------------------

Ju ly December 1941

JanuaryDecember 1942

JanuaryJune 1943

T otal |

|

1Deliveries to Germany

j Deliveries to the Arm y i

: Shipments from G er­ many to Eastern | agriculture | Net Delivery Value

325

125

760

196 178

1063

564

j

168

1085

374

1627

'

59

259

127

109

826

247

43

!

!

445 118 2 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ 1

T h e above figures are, however, an inadequate measure for several reasons. T hey do not include the considerable quantities collected and distributed to German and collaborator personnel in the occupied areas ; the price rates at which

CH. xvii

Germany and Eastern Agriculture : II

369

To the extent that a primary goal of German economic exploita­ tion was the feeding of the armies stationed at the Eastern front, the collection policy was fairly satisfactory. Yet ‘ success’ was a vicious circle: the occupation fed an army that made possible the occupation but lost the w a r; and the methods by which this food was procured contributed to the loss of the war by antagonizing the population. The instrument of conquest, the Army, was fe d ; not so the people in whose name the war was waged. The produce obtained in the second half of 1941 — the first period of occupation — was considerably less than what Germany would have received from the U .S.S.R . had it observed the commercial treaties signed during the German-Soviet Pact. From the first winter through 1943, only the south fulfilled the estimated needs in grain. In 1943-4, much of the crop was lost in partisan warfare and retreat. Only one year, 1942-3, can be called ‘ normal’ in terms of agricultural production. The destructive effect of the double scorched-earth policy — German and Soviet — on post-war developments in Soviet agriculture as well as on the peasantry needs no comment. Yet the benefit derived by the Reich was in no sense commensurate with the tremendous investment of brain, brawn, and bullets. The very same areas yielded far richer crops prior to — and after — German rule. This was so not because of superior Soviet methods of cultiva­ tion or peasant devotion to the Soviet regime but largely because of the conditions created by the war. Germany entered the East with a studied ignorance of the social and political problems it would face. Yet its preoccupation with economic exploitation was bound to have political repercussions. Its failure to satisfy peasant aspirations and its onerous requisitions became political issues, symbolized by the ‘ last cow’ that Hitler ordered taken from the Soviet peasant. The problems of rural organization in Russia were difficult enough under any circumstances. the value was computed were discriminatory against the occupied areas ; and, while imports into the East were fully recorded, actual requisitions often were made but not recorded in statistical computations — amounting to a figure estimated at between io and 20 per cent of the total collection. An estimate in late 1944 placed total agricultural deliveries from the occupied U .S .S .R . to Germany at four billion R M during the entire period (not including services) ; if anything, the figure is too low. German counter-deliveries to Eastern agriculture amounted to about a half-billion R M . (Forschungsstelle für Wehrwirtschaft, Arbeitsstab Ausland, ‘ Die finanziellen Leistungen der besetzten Gebiete bis 3 1. März 1944*, October 10, 1944, Document 86-E C , N C A , viii, 277.) Riecke testified later that ‘ the deliveries from Russia amounted to not quite fifty per cent of the deliveries from the entire occupied areas, during the three years that Russia was occupied’ . (Case X I, Engl, transcript, p. 16019 ; see also ibid. 16213-80 .)

37o

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

They became practically insoluble because of the prevalent outlook of occupation officials, and the conflict among different German goals. Which was to come first: feeding the Army, feeding the homefront, feeding the starving cities in the East, or feeding the local peasantry so that it would produce more willingly and abundantly ? Which was to prevail, maximum agricultural production or maximum shipment of forced labour to the Reich ? Was future Germanization to be facilitated and potential political opposition wiped out by air­ tight control and maintenance of collective farms, easy to supervise and exploit, or was the sincere support of the indigenous peasantry to be aroused by permitting it to partition and reorganize farms with constructive German help, even at the price of a temporary decline in production ? There was never an authoritative and final answer to these questions. Instead there was a series of com­ promises, arrived at not by rational reflection but by a combination of emotional stereotypes and the pressure of power groups within the German elite. Institutionally, the most serious question was the fate of the collective farms. On the record, about nine-tenths were renamed communes; the others were formally converted into agricultural co-operatives; the number of private farms established was statistic­ ally insignificant. In fact, however, many of the communes outside the Ukraine and the adjacent areas of southern Russia actually operated as co-operatives with individual strips and individual harvesting, but with distinct elements of compulsion imposed from above. Even Schiller, who as one of the architects of German agrarian reform was at times prone to view the accomplishments rather favourably, recognized that it is conceivable that the war situation did not permit much leeway for the immediate establishment of independent family farms. Yet the political and social effect of this failure to replace the Soviet form of collective farming by something corresponding to the desire of the people contributed to the doom of the entire campaign against Soviet Russia.1 For the Soviet state the peasantry constituted a major source of vulnerability. An invader could have sought to satisfy some of its admittedly modest aspirations. Even under German-imposed conditions this anti-Soviet potential made itself felt, along with a strong striving for local self-government, in the quest for individual 1 Brandt, op. cit. pp. 96, 99. See also W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Aufgaben und Leistungen*, ch. iii, pp. 37-8. This conclusion is reiterated in a variety of other German war-time and post-war comments.

cm. xvn

Germany and Eastern Agriculture: II

371

initiative and advantage, and above all in the desire for the abolition of the elements of duress and terror expressed by the collective farm. To be sure, there were significant variations in peasant reactions. Overwhelmingly' they were not due to any inherent characteristics of different strata of the Soviet rural population — the managerial element being absent — but resulted from alternatives of German policy. Everything else being equal, hostility was greatest where the deviation from the norm of Soviet collectives was least, i.e. in the Ukraine and adjacent southern provinces. Inversely, in the areas of Centre and North, and especially in the North Caucasus, the German agrarian reform, going much further, was far more successful both in economic and in political terms.1 While at the beginning the political aspirations of the population had been ignored, precisely the pragmatic approach implicit in ‘ maximum exploitation’ later facilitated the adoption of ‘ con­ cessions’ to peasant pressures. From the point of view of winning and anchoring peasant support on the German side, the concessions came too late, after the tide of popular adjustment to the new order had ebbed and the dual wave of partisan warfare and German reprisals had risen to a point from which there was no turning back. None the less, by contrast with other problem areas, in agriculture some efforts at reform and change were made. As one of the German agrarian officials noted in retrospect, in this field the occupation authorities had used relatively more ‘ sugar-bread’ than in other phases of occupation policy.12 This ‘ sugar-bread’ was not baked in the rare fat of generosity or humaneness but with the yeast of pragmatic self-interest. Economically, it was of some help; how­ ever, as a weapon of political and psychological warfare, the effect of the agrarian reform was nullified by procrastination in application and by the impression of deceit which it evoked. Nor did it go nearly far enough to produce a new operating system by providing either effective machinery of control and compulsion (as had existed under the Soviets), or a set of incentives and sources of satisfaction that could have taken their place. Isolated reform could not undo methodical abuse. The over­ riding effect of other facets of German behaviour cancelled the beneficial political results of the Agrarerlass. Evidently the Nazi system was incapable of learning this fact. The root of its predica­ ment was not only a lack of integration of policies, not only a diversity 1 This is the more significant as there was virtually no Soviet partisan activity in the open country of the Ukraine and the southern R S F S R . 2 M V V C [Hellmut] Körner, ‘ Die neue deutsche Ukraine-Politik’ [April 20, 1944], Document i i9 8 - P S #.

372

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

of standards, incompetence, and indecision: the very plan for making the East into a gigantic colony, and the corresponding methods and attitudes of German officialdom doomed agrarian policy to failure by imposing blinders of which the policy-makers could not later divest themselves. Both by their plans and their practices the occupying authorities aroused against themselves the largest segment of Soviet society which, given other aims and methods, might have become their stalwart ally.

A N N E X

A G RICU LTU RA L PRODUCE, 1 9 4 1 - 4 4 The following table is based largely on the book-keeping records of the Zentralhandelsgesellschaft Ost (ZHO) An attempt has been made to adjust the figures, where necessary, to more complete data given in other sources. It should be noted that German records do not, of course, include wild requisitioning and seizures unreported to superior headquarters. It may be estimated that the figures are correct within a margin of io to 20 per cent, but in all likelihood they are somewhat too low. Wherever available, account has been taken of data on re-export to the armed forces of goods delivered to Germany.1 TABLE I T O T A L D E L IV E R IE S : S E L E C T E D IT E M S July 1941 through March 1944 2 (Unless otherwise indicated, in thousands of tons) [ ] indicates different figures from German import statistics

(b) Deliveries to Germany

373

Deliveries to German Arm y

Grain (thereof, bread grains) Pulses and vegetables Hay Cattle and meat Eggs (in thousands) ! i Oil seeds and oil Potatoes Sugar Beer (in hi.) ) (hi. = 26-4 Alcohol (in hl.) / U.S. gall.) Butter

565° (2222) 302 1817 412 783 29 2040 244 1680 182 118

(a+b)

68ll [6875] (3°I0) [(3272)]

n6i (788) 40 0 67 !3 3

726 13

62 0 1

0 21

342

!

!

i

1817 4 79 t663 ] 9 l6 75 5 ' 2053 [2721] 306 1680 182 x 3 9 tI2 7 ]

.(c) Distributed to German Officials and collaborators in East

2341 (2006) 260 691 85 162 217 1229 95 807 68

{d-a+b+c) Total German Collection and Seizure

| .i

9152 [10,000?] (5016) 602 j 2508 : 564 i 1078 | 972 ; 3282 1 4 01 | i 2487 | 3 °7

207

;1 1

1 See Brandt, op. cit. pp. 128 f f .; Rosenberg to Bormann, October 17, 1944, Document 327-P S , T M W C , xxv, 3 5 6 -7 ; W iStab Ost, ‘ Ernte, Erfassung und Lieferung’ [n.d.], W i/ID .38 2; Zahlen zur deutschen Kriegsernährungswirtschaft, 1945. 2 Including the Baltic States but not including Transnistria, Bialystok, and Galicia.

T A B L E

II

G R A IN : G E R M A N Q U O T A S A N D A C T U A L D E L I V E R I E S T O G E R M A N Y A N D A R M Y 1 (In thousands of tons)

1941 - 2 Quotas !

|

|

T otals

Deliv­ eries

Quotas

Quotas

Deliv­ eries

1 !

Deliv- j eries |

Quotas

1

1

!

20 4

3 10

31

J 280

( 64 1 224

}

944

260

118

50 220

39 69

|

10 7 0

502

2150

2295

250 0

15 7 0

595°

5427

( l ( \

239

) 4 50 i ) 1 15 6 2 J I 3° °

50 255 3°4 9 ° . j 37

— 11

17 0

i 1

2060 ! 2005

—

—

—

1

!

2854

2906

3° S °

19 6 6

7964

r--

I

Deliv­ eries

T otal

1943-4

iI

00

374

Army Group North Ostland (Baltic area) Belorussia (GenK borders) Army Group Centre Ukraine (RK borders) Army Group South Caucasus

1942-3

17 0

1

i

i

6877

1 These figures, based on the records of the ZH O and Wirtschaftsstab Ost (W i/ID 2 .13 4 5 * and 13 7 5 *, C R S), include deliveries to the Arm y and shipment to the Reich [columns a + b in Table I], but not the amounts for feeding German and collaborator officials in the occupied areas. T hey naturally take no account of requisitions prior to the creation of the ZH O and confiscations conducted without its knowledge.

T A B L E

III

O ta m nt the Occupied U .S . S . R . July 1941-March 1944, approximate, in thousands of tons. (In clu d in g Transnistru, Galicia, Bialystok, and North Caucasus) 1

’ T h e figures arc com puted from various, and not always agreeing, sources. W herever two sets of figures are civcn, the upper indicates the available official (usually ZIIO ) data, while the lower represents the figure as adjusted by 1'igures in brackets indicate estim ates or alternative figures from other sources. T h e percentage of the harvest collected by the Germ ans (colum n cl is com puted on the basis of total sown area, including partisan-held territory behind the German lines. the author on the basis of other com putations.

T A B L E IV P L A N N E D D I S T R I B U T I O N O F G R A IN CR O P

An approximation of Soviet and German designs can be obtained by comparing data for Soviet harvest distribution for 1938 with the projected German harvest distribution for 1943 (not actually carried out because of the retreat, the diminution of the area under German control, and other factors). State farms are not included in either rubric. (A)' S o v ie t ,

1938

(B)12

G erman, 1943

(in percentage of total)

Deliveries to state and Army Sales to state and on free market Deliveries and sales to feed urban popu­ lation Feed Seed To MTS, experimental stations, and other expenditures For use of peasant population

p er cent

per cent

15

25

5

II

H 18 21

15 20

! I!

7

27

22

IOO

IOO

1 Based on Lazar Volin, A Survey of Soviet Russian Agriculture (Washington : Depart ment of Agriculture, 19 51), p. 188. 2 Based on W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe La, ‘ Verm erk: Getreideernte 1 9 4 3 ’ , n.d., W i/ID .346*, C R S. 375

C HAP T E R XVI I I

G E R M A N Y A N D T H E S O V IE T E C O N O M Y T h e real profiteers of this war are ourselves, and out of it we shall come bursting with fat ! W e will give back nothing and will take everything we can make use of. And if the others protest I don’t care a damn.— A d o lf H it l e r , August n , 1942

Industry and Mining W h il e extractive activities in the East — mining and oil-drilling — were to be stepped up in war as well as in peace, German theory on the eve of the invasion provided for the eventual elimination of virtually all other segments of Soviet industry.1 In practice, the issue of ultimate de-industrialization was scarcely mentioned after the war began. Much of the destruction of the economic potential of the occupied areas was carried out, paradoxically, not by Hitler’s men but by Stalin’s, and, as the war continued, the increasing shortages in the Reich dictated the use of all available resources in utter disregard of long-range visions. After the chaotic withdrawals in June-July 1941, Soviet destruc­ tion battalions, with the aid of the Red Army and the N K V D , instituted a thorough demolition of economic installations and stocks which had not been evacuated from the war zone. Heavy industry was moved out and rebuilt far to the east, with many of the same engineers, managers, and skilled labourers being transported to the new locations for war-time duty. Thus, upon their arrival, the German economic staffs often found little more than rubble. As one eye-witness described i t : The whole centralized system of trade and distribution is disrupted ; supplies have been burned, evacuated, or looted; the administrative apparatus has been dissolved, withdrawn, or liquidated. Factories and enterprises have been destroyed in part or in their entirety, their machinery wrecked. Sources of power have been blown up, and their equipment scattered or hidden. Spare parts cannot be located or have wilfully been mixed up. All rosters of parts and machinery have been destroyed. Fuel and lubricants have been burned or looted. There is no electric power. Often the water supply is out of order, and there are no specialists to make repairs.2 1 See above, pp. 305-7. * Vladimir Dudin, ‘ Novye nachala’, M S * , pp. 4-5. 376

CH. xviii

Germany and the Soviet Economy

377

Only in exceptional circumstances, usually because of the speed of the German advance, were plants and mines left more or less intact.1 Even if the Germans’ anti-industrial policy had suddenly been abandoned, full reconstruction would have been a physical im­ possibility. In the absence of clear directives, German officials in the newly won areas were compelled to improvise ; the later editions of such compilations as the ‘ Green Folder’ therefore amounted to an amalgam of individual and often disconnected instructions on special branches and phases of economic activity, rather than an integrated plan of action. Reconstruction actually began with little delay and was often undertaken locally by enterprising military or economic officials.2 Workshops were reopened haphazardly — here, to repair German tanks ; there, to produce shoes for the troops ; elsewhere, to build horse-carts for transport over the muddy country roads. Military utility won out on the spot, at the expense of Nazi theory. Especially after the severe crisis during the first winter at the Eastern front, a long series of German directives provided for large-scale requisition­ ing and increased production of textiles, leather goods, horse-carts, sleighs, and other items needed by the troops.3 As the war continued, emphasis shifted further towards harnessing Eastern industry and resources for the Reich, even to the point of reviving armament production — a goal that stood in fundamental conflict with long-range Nazi plans for the future Russia.4 By July 1942 the basic change of tactics had been accomplished, and Hitler spoke of ‘ relieving pressure on home production by the manufacture of munitions in the Donets Basin’.5 Thereafter miscellaneous directives, one by one, lifted the restrictions on the use of Eastern plants, and a variety of items ranging from light-bulbs to heavy generators were shipped in from the Reich to permit the resumption of production. Priority was now assigned to (1) Army needs, (2) demands of various economic branches in the East, (3) requirements 1 For the Soviet account by a leading official, since purged, see Nicholas A. Voznesenskii, Soviet Economy During the Second World War (New York : Inter­ national Publishers, 1949). For details in German reports, see ‘ Materialsammlung’ , pp. 172, 199 ; Einsatzgruppen Report, no. 61 (August 23, 19 4 1)* ; Documents K örner-328* and K öm er-474*. 2 In some instances — for example, Bobruisk and Krivoi Rog — indigenous engineers and workers restored and reopened their plants without German help. (Interview H -35 7 ; Krakivs'ki Visti [Cracow], November 22, 1941.) 3 ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 2 1 2 - 1 3 . 4 In limited form, it is true, General Thom as’s office had foreseen the necessity of using captured Soviet war industry during the conflict. See Thomas, ‘ Grund­ lagen für eine Geschichte der deutschen Wehr- und Rüstungswirtschaft’, M S , Document 235 3-P S , T M W C , xxx, 278. 5 H T T , p. 665 (entry for August 27, 1942).

37^

Problems and Practice

p t

. m

of that part of the local population which ‘ works in the common interest’.1 The efforts expended in procuring the requisite machinery, technicians, and labour were considerable; the results varied from excellent to abominable. The manganese ore deposits at Nikopol’ were of decisive importance for the German armament industry. Badly wrecked by the Soviets, they were restored sufficiently to permit small-scale exploitation by the end of 1941, though work suffered from frequent stoppages until mid-1942. From then on, manganese was extracted at a rapid rate. Compared with the Soviet pre-war output of about 100,000 tons of ore per month, German management secured only 36,000 tons in the summer of 1942 but reached nearly 120,000 tons by early 1943, when the military crisis forced curtailment of operations.12 The Donets coal mines were another primary object of German exploitation. Of 178 mines, however, only 25 were usable when the Wehrmacht arrived. Even their exploitation was severely crippled by lack of labour, electric power, and equipment. In June 1942, when 2,500 tons were being mined per day, Hitler decreed that ‘ the speediest possible reconstruction of coal mining in the Donets Basin is one of the most essential prerequisites for the pursuit of operations in the East and the utilization of the Russian space for the German war economy. . . .’ As a result 60,000 Soviet prisoners of war were assigned to coal m ining; and a special plenipotentiary with summary authority was appointed to boost the coal output at all cost. Indeed, by the turn of the year production had risen to 10,000 tons a day and was optimistically expected to climb to 30,000 tons (900,000 tons a month). Actually, after a dip to about 250,000 tons after the crisis of early 1943, output rose again to about 400,000 tons in June. This level was attained only at the cost of extreme exertion and com­ pulsion ; even so coal had to be hauled from Upper Silesia to keep the Ukrainian economy operating.3 As for oil, so important in the German war economy, the situation was considerably worse. The administrative machinery had been prepared in the form of a special corporation — the Kontinentale Oel — and a huge para-military ‘ Technical Brigade for Mineral O il’ (TBM ). However, the only substantial oil areas 1 Friedrich Edding, ‘ Industrielle Betriebe an der Arbeit*, Deutsche OstKorrespondenz (Berlin), no. 2 (April 22, 1943), pp. 3-4 ; Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 153 ff. 2 See ‘ Materialsammlung\ pp. 19 1-3. 3 See ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 173, 185-8 ; Hitler, decree, June 28, 1942, W i/ID 2.130 7b *, C R S ; W iStab Ost to Göring, January 1943, Document N O -

Cu. xviii

Germany and the Soviet Economy

379

reached by the German Army, in the North Caucasus, had been crippled beyond easy repair, and the area was abandoned before any sizeable amounts of oil could be secured. Thereafter, only the rich slate deposits in Estonia remained for intense exploitation by the Reich.1 Electric power was badly needed for the armament enterprises as well as for the indigenous population. About three-fourths of all stations were wrecked when the Germans arrived. After immense technical difficulties, only 20 per cent of pre-war electric capacity had been restored by the summer of 1942. Thereafter, with efforts to repair and utilize Soviet facilities stepped up considerably, power was made available in close to sufficient quantities, especially after the giant Dneprostroi dam was restored to operation in January 19432 Of vital importance in German economic plans was the restoration of iron and steel facilities in the East. The iron ore mines at Krivoi Rog had been severely crippled during the Soviet retreat. Only by the end of 1942 were they again producing significant quantities — about 5000 tons of ore a day ; German plans to raise mining quotas to 15,000 tons were not nearly fulfilled. For the first period of the occupation, iron and steel mills, like those at Stalino and Zaporozh’e, wrecked and handicapped by lack of power and equipment, lay idle. After the change of German tactics in mid-1942, they too received special attention, and raw steel output was resumed by early 1943 in quantities varying between 3000 and 6000 tons a month.123 This was still far short of Hitler’s order to restore the Donets Basin’s steel production to one million tons in 1943 and two million in 1944 (Soviet output had exceeded five million). In 1943, just prior to the Soviet counter-attack, the whole project of intensified restoration of the war industry, especially in the south, was gaining momentum.4 Soviet victories forced first a cutback and then the abandonment of the entire area in the course of 1943. Another phase that received attention after the change in German policy was production of agricultural machinery for use in the East. While a good deal was shipped in from the Reich, several plants producing ploughs, tractors, scythes, and spare parts were restored, 1 See above, pp. 242-3, and ‘ Materialsammlung,, pp. 180-4. The use of peat for fuel was likewise stepped up in the occupied East. 2 ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 1 7 7 - 9 ; Document 235 3-P S , T M W C , xxx, 2 7 7 ; Documents K örner-475* and Körner-468* ; Hadamowsky and Taubert, ‘ Bericht über die Propaganda-Lage im Osten*, December 17, 1942, Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O , pp. 24-7. 3 ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 19 1-4 ; Hadamowsky and Taubert, op. cit. 4 ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 17 3 -5 , 201 ; Document K öm er-493*.

38°

Problems and Practice

P T. I l l

for instance in Khar’kov, Rostov, and Berdiansk. Though production was uniformly low, by 1943 an upswing was noticeable.1 Elsewhere, more primitive efforts at reconstruction were under­ taken. In the area of Economic Inspectorate North, for instance, a number of pottery, brick, and peat works resumed operation, as did saw mills, lime kilns, and leather processing shops.12 Whatever official theory had intended, it was these small enterprises, requiring little labour, capital, and raw material, that proved easiest to reopen. At the same time, small-scale production at home — the old Russian kustar’ system — was mobilized for Army needs. Home production, for instance, accounted for millions of pairs of shoes delivered to the German troops; of the local population, only active collaborators and Volksdeutsche were eligible to receive them.3 Industrial and natural resources in the East, to the extent that they could be exploited, contributed to the German survival, especially of the German armies. The contribution, though appreciable, was by no means decisive. Even in the face of Soviet destruction, it would have been greater, it seems, had the occupying power approached the problem without preconceived notions. In the end, considerations of utility — so difficult a weapon to forge in the political smithies of war-time Berlin — prevailed. Yet the change in German tactics from selective annihilation to maximum restoration of Eastern economy ushered in no significant changes of attitude towards the population that manned it. Soviet Property and the Reich The cardinal question of who would own what in the future East raised problems which require separate study. The following survey is intended only to suggest some of the approaches and areas of conflict. The problems were, first, the disposition of Soviet state property, i.e. all industry, natural resources, transportation, trade, and utilities ; second, controlling and deciding among competing German agencies and interests which injected themselves into the Eastern economy, notably the State itself as owner and manager, government-owned corporations, the Army, the SS, and private German concerns; and, finally, determining the property rights of the indigenous population. Even without the specific war-time circumstances any solution of 1 Richard Gogarten, affidavit, Document Korschan-i 15 * . 2 W iln Nord, Wirtschaftsgefüge der Wirtschafts-Inspektion Nord ([Pskov,] 1942), p. 26. 3 RM fdbO ., Chefgruppe Wirtschaftspolitische Kooperation, Informations­ dienst , 1943, no. 4, pp. 2-4 ; ‘ Materialsammlung *, pp. 2 13 -14 .

CH. xviii

Germany and the Soviet Economy

381

these problems involved considerable difficulty. The continued maintenance of a government machinery in charge of the economy required a new centralized bureaucracy and threw to the winds the propaganda advantages of an appeal to individual initiative and ownership. To establish private property in industry would have required a class of qualified managers and officials as well as new capital investments. Any effort to return property to its previous owners was bound to antagonize large strata of the population and, moreover, would have left unresolved the disposition of considerable values created since Soviet nationalization. As in agriculture, a return of industrial property to indigenous hands was scarcely envisaged in Berlin when the invasion began. In the disputes over the disposition of property, the local population was invariably the last and weakest claimant. First, Rosenberg proclaimed as a matter of general policy, and then Bräutigam elaborated in a quasi-legal argument, the principle that by inter­ national law the occupying power was authorized to ‘ dispose ’ of the state property it took over.1 In the light of this decision, a category of ‘ special property’ [Sondervermögen] was legally established to include ‘ the total property of the U .S.S.R ., its member states, public corporations, trusts, and combinations’, which was ‘ confiscated and secured by order of the military command’. The Reich Commissars, under direction of the Ostministerium, were to determine the disposition in any given case, consulting with the Four-Year Plan whenever more permanent changes were involved.2 The crux of the argument was the disposition among German contenders, not between Germans and Russians. The Nazi leadership had never given a simple or definitive answer to the question of state v. private enterprise even within the Reich. State control was a sine qua non of totalitarian economics; yet state, public, and private enterprise existed side by side in Nazi Germany in a not always consistent amalgam. Within the Party itself, one could distinguish the remnants of two basically different 1 Bräutigam, ‘ Eigentumsfragen in den besetzten Ostgebieten’ , Ostwirtschaft (Berlin), xxxi, 69-72. T h e problem was of special relevance to the former German owners of property in the U .S .S .R . Though their claims were deemed void as the result of the settlement reached under the Rapallo agreement, Rosenberg decided that ‘ former German values will be the property of the Greater German people’ , though ‘ without regard for the individual former owner’ . (Rosenberg, ‘ A ll­ gemeine Instruktion für alle Reichskommissare in den besetzten Ostgebieten’ , M ay 8, 1941, Document 1030-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 579.) 2 Braune Mappey Teil A , 2nd ed., p. 27 ; Rosenberg, decree, M ay 28, 1942, RM fdbO ., Verordnungsblatt, i (1942), 2 1. A German financial expert insists that a major purpose of this device was to neutralize ‘ the numerous private economic interests . . . whose covetous desires it was impossible [otherwise] to eliminate’ . (Friedrich Vialon, affidavit, Document Schwerin-von-Krosigk-50*.)

G.R.R.— 2 C

382

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

concepts, which in some measure found expression in the arguments over reprivatization in the East: the ‘ revolutionary’ wing of anti­ capitalists and statists; and the spokesmen of German business, advocating respect and privileges for private property and initiative. Enterprises like I.G . Farben were naturally interested in extending their domain to the East, acquiring sources of raw material, markets, and perhaps cheap labour; while Nazi officials on the spot, jealous of any effort to impinge on their own authority, viewed private business as an illegitimate interloper seeking to enrich itself ‘ at the expense of German blood’ . For months, several alternatives were debated in Berlin. They were analysed in a research paper produced by Robert L ey’s Labour Front organization, which concluded : (1) Colonial exploitation by private capitalist companies under conditions of quasi-monopolies would lead to a maldistribution of profits and benefits within the master nation. (2) One could re-establish private enterprise in the East, assuring essential German control by means of wage and price regulation. In practice, however, this would be the most difficult technique to enforce. (3) Private property could be encouraged in certain branches of economy, such as handicraft and agriculture. At any rate, Germany would need to exercise stringent control over foreign trade and keep the purchasing power of the population low by means of taxation, so that the Reich could buy surplus goods. (4) Rather than leave matters to private German companies, the State should take colonial utilization into its own hands as a monopolist in certain key branches. ‘ The indigenous labour force would receive what­ ever the German Reich grants it, while the total residual product would be made available by the Reich to the German people at such prices as would be deemed just on the basis of economic and political considerations.’ 1 A different formula was advanced by Bräutigam, who handled the reprivatization issue in the Rosenberg Ministry. Like most officials who publicly expressed themselves on the subject, he started from the assumption that ‘ in principle’ and at least ‘ eventually’ National Socialism supported private enterprise. On the other hand, he argued, revoking Soviet nationalization by decree was impossible for political, administrative, and economic reasons. The new order must, axiomatically, correspond to ‘ Germany’s interests ’ ; the implication was that reprivatization needed to be affirmed as a goal but would largely have to be postponed or implemented slowly.2 1 Paraphrase, Deutsche Arbeitsfront, Arbeitswissenschaftliches Institut, ‘ Erwägungen zur Nutzung der eroberten Gebiete durch das deutsche Volk’ , 19 41, Document Occ £ -3 0 * , Y IV O , p. 4. 2 Bräutigam, op. cit.

CH. xviii

Germany and the Soviet Economy

383

Accordingly the policy directives provided for ‘ transformation step by step’ . Additional arguments for postponement were the plans for rewarding German troops by giving them future priorities in acquiring property in the E a st; the razing of many enterprises if and when de-industrialization was carried o u t; and the lack of experienced indigenous managers and officials.1 Actually, several forms of German control emerged side by side. For such goods as salt and sugar, and later tobacco and liquor, the German State reserved for itself the operation and exploitation of classical monopolies. The purpose of the direct part which the government assumed in these branches was frankly to raise revenue.123 Far more significant was the special institution established to handle state property and economic activity in the East, the trusteeship company. The Reich, as custodian of former Soviet property, created government corporations — known initially as ‘ monopoly companies’, later redesignated ‘ Eastern companies’ — to operate as ‘ trustees’ in lieu of the former Soviet administration. These companies, which were granted a monopoly for a given branch of economy, were government-financed but operated with the active participation of German private business. The entire trusteeship phenomenon was considered a transitional device whose virtue was the combination of government activity in economic direction and private enterprise in execution.-1 The new companies which mushroomed in rapid sequence might be grouped as follows : (1) those organized to procure goods and make them available to other agencies, such as the corporation for trade in raw materials (Rohstoffhandelsgesellschaft); such organizations were not peculiar to the occupied E a st; (2) industrial and mining enterprises, including the three colossi: the BHO (Berg- und Hüttenwerk G.m.b.H.) in mining, the Kontinentale Oel 1 Braune Mappe, Teil A , 2nd ed., pp. 25 ff. As an intermediate step, and in cognizance of indigenous interests, the economic sections of the Rosenberg Ministry and Wirtschaftsstab Ost were willing to approve the participation of managerial personnel in the sharing of profits of state-owned enterprises, especially smaller shops. Managers could be either Germans or local residents, such as former owners. (See ibid.> and ‘ Materialsammlung*, p. 251.) There is no indica­ tion that this system was ever enacted. 2 See, for instance, Meyer, Recht, section O iv C ; and RM fdbO ., decrees on monopolies, December 3, 1942, Verordnungsblatt, i (1942), 90-4. 3 Goring, decree, July 27, 1941, Document N I-3 7 7 7 , N M T , xiii, 849-50 ; Braune Mappey op, cit, ; Hans Thode, ‘ Unternehmertum im Osten*, Ostwirtschaft, xxxi (1942), 125-36 . Only one of the ‘ Eastern companies*, the Kontinentale Oel, was intended to be a permanent organization, partly because of Göring*s and Rosenberg’s personal interest in it. See above, pp. 272-3 ; Document 10 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 556 ; and the evidence in Case V I, N M T (especially against Krauch, Flick, and Bütefisch).

3^4

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

A .G . in oil, and the Ostfaser company for wool fibre; (3) trading companies, such as the ZHO in agriculture, discussed earlier, and its counterpart in timber; and (4) service companies like Chemie-Ost and Superphosphat-Ost.1 In addition to these forms of government operation — direct and indirect — a third device permitted a larger participation of German business. This technique was foreshadowed in Göring’s original decree establishing the Eastern companies. Initially it was planned to establish only a few government corporations ; for the rest [the order provided] it will suffice for the purpose of safe­ guarding German interests during the transition period, if particularly important branches of industry and commerce are administered by German firms acting as individual trustees.2 However, as government corporations mushroomed during the first months of the war, the private firms were more or less left out. When the new tactics adopted in mid-1942 called for a speedier restoration of Eastern industry and mining, big business corporations were at last encouraged to take over Soviet enterprises as sponsors or ‘ foster-parents’ [Paten] in order to carry out a more rapid and efficient reconstruction. As an incentive, these German firms were given to understand that their efforts would be ‘ duly rewarded’. Even if [Wirtschaftsstab Ost stated] the ultimate recognition of private property rights of companies active in the Eastern economy cannot as yet be decided upon, it will be possible to give assurances to [these companies] that their efforts and material expenditures will be recognized and taken cognizance of in the future.3 Large firms closely associated with the cartels and holding companies, which had direct representation and contacts at the top level of the German economic edifice, were assigned Eastern ‘ foster1 For basic directives on the trusteeship companies, see Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 12 3-9 I Meyer, Recht, sections O iii A and O iv C. See also Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 16, 17 3 -4 \ Documents 3566-P S, 38 -E C , N G -570 2, N I-36 89 , N I-3 7 7 7 , N I-4 3 3 2 , N I-5 2 6 1, N I-52 8 7 , N I-54 8 1 ; Der deutsche Volkswirt (Berlin, 19 4 1-3 ) ; W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe W , ‘ Übersicht über die Aufgaben der Ostgesellschaften ’ [February 5, 1942], W i/ID .79*, C R S . The monopoly companies were authorized by Goring on Ju ly 27, 19 4 1, and as early as the following week the first companies were brought to life. As a typical example, the Ostfaser company was created on August 4, 19 4 1, with strong participation of private German interests but with ownership retained by the Reich. Its president, Hans Kehrl, was a high official of the Economy Ministry in Berlin. Soon it established subsidiaries in each of the Reich Commissariats and Economic Inspectorates, beginning an activity whose turnover amounted to millions of Reichsmarks. (Ostfaser-Gesellschaft m.b.H., Berlin, ‘ Tätigkeitsbericht’ , 19 4 1-2 , Document 17 2 -E C * , and ‘ Gesamtbericht, 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 4 ’ , Document 256 6 -P S*.) 2 Document N I-3 7 7 7 , N M T , xii, 849. 3 ‘ Materialsammlung’ , p. 251 (entry for June 15, 1942).

CH. xviii

Germany and the Soviet Economy

385

children’. In the fall of 1942 Krupp received the AzovstaV plant in Mariupol’ and several others in Dnepropetrovsk. The HermannGöring combine and its subsidiaries took over the huge steel works at Zaporozh’e and plants at Krivoi Rog. Other enterprises went to Mannesmann and the Flick concern, while a number of mines were assigned to German mining and smelting firms.1 Big business thus found an opportunity for direct intervention in the East. Its role, however, went far beyond this overt penetration. The new Eastern companies, like the staff of the Four-Year Plan, included among its directors men who combined big business with government service. Paul Körner himself was chairman of the administrative council of the ZHO. Hans Kehrl, a director of the Hermann-Göring Works and head of the planning branch of ‘ Central Economic Planning’, became chairman of the board of Ostfaser; Pleiger, Keppler, and other Four-Year Plan officials drawn from private business likewise obtained key positions in the new trustee­ ship scheme.12 Other captains of German industry were gladly ‘ lent’ to government agencies in anticipation of reciprocal favours. Gustav Schlotterer, head of the economic (industrial and trade) sections of the OMi and WiStab, was a director of the Flick concern. A bevy of smaller officials and managers came from various Ruhr and Silesian companies. This peculiar recruitment process, which had its distinct implications for economic policy, was considered un­ avoidable if the Reich wanted to establish a sizeable corps of experienced administrators for the economic exploitation of the East. As early as February 1941 it was agreed that as a matter of policy reliable personalities from German concerns shall be employed wherever appropriate [in Soviet economy], since only with the help of their experience can successful work be performed from the start. . . .3* Even when these officials had no specific mission to fulfil for their mother-companies at home, their general outlook and attitude were bound to reflect those of German big business. Conflicts of Interest Inevitably, clashes arose over the control of the Eastern economy. Of these, the most important developed along two axes : the conflict 1 ‘ Aktennotiz für Herrn Pleiger : Vergabe von Patenschaften* [September 2, 1942], Document N J-5 4 8 o # ; BHO, ‘ Auszug aus dem Arbeitsbericht der BH O für das Jahr 1942*, Document N I -4 3 3 2 * , p. 3. See also Document N I-2 8 9 6 * ; and Arnold and Veronica M . Toynbee, eds., Hitler9s Europe (London : Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 202. 2 See N M T , xiii, 19-20, 27, 179. 3 [O K W /W iR ü Amt,] ‘ Besprechung beim Herrn Amtschef Gen. der Inf. Thomas am 28.2.41 \ Document I3 I7 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 170 -1.

386

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

of ‘ left’ and ‘ right’, and the contest between economic and politicaladministrative agencies. The Party’s left rallied against the com­ panies that promoted huge economic combinations in ignorance or defiance of the political programmes master-minded by the Rosen­ berg office or its stubborn Reich Commissars in the field. In turn, private interests exercised sufficient pressure and were so crucial in the war economy at home, that Goring, ostensibly with Hitler’s consent, laid down the rule that organs of the State, Party, and Army cannot be considered for the direction of economic enterprises, which they would be unable to carry out. Enterprises whose recognition is desired are rather to be turned over primarily to firms and personalities possessing the requisite expert knowledge and possessing or managing similar enterprises [in the Reich].1 While private business seemed to take a lead over subsidiary government agencies, it did not fare so well when it tried to take a source of revenue from the Reich itself. When a German tobacco manufacturer, a personal friend of Goring, sought to secure the monopoly for the East, Hitler ‘ roundly forebade this and stressed that the tobacco monopoly could be exercised only by the Reich itself’ .2 The situation was more complex when it came to trustee­ ship corporations. Goring (as well as Körner and Rosenberg) had to acknowledge at an early date that ‘ certain differences of opinion’ had developed over their ro le; yet a solution to the disagreements was not easy to find.3 In November 1941 Goring had argued that trusteeship implied no right of future ownership. In May 1942 he confirmed, but in a far weaker tone, that property rights were left for future settlement.4 At a conference of German experts on the Soviet economy held in October 1942, Professor Eugen Sieber presented a detailed paper on Eastern industry, which made clear that private ownership, though in principle a desirable goal, was as remote as ever. Stressing that in Soviet industry ‘ there exist numerous tasks which would probably constitute too high a risk for the private entrepreneur’, Sieber came out for continued primacy of the German state and its protege companies; the Reich must assure ‘ the leadership of at least the most important, i.e. the largest 1 Vierjahresplan, ‘ V P 19203/6 g. Anlage*, November 18, 19 41, Document N I-440, N M T , xiii, 863. 2 Bormann, memorandum, March 25, 1942, Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 19 5 1), p. 136. See also Document N G -2 9 18 , N M T , xiii, 562. 3 Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 12 3-4 I Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk*, M ay 13, 1942, Document 1520 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 285. 4 For details, see Otto Bräutigam, ‘ Überblick über die besetzten Ostgebiete’ (Tübingen : Institut für Besatzungsfragen, 1954), pp. 49-50.

CH.

xvi 11

Germany and the Soviet Economy

387

industrial enterprises by German concerns. . . He waved aside the objections that as a result (as some circles argued) a small German master layer would face an alien proletariat and thereby would intensify national tensions; that, furthermore, the number of Germans available for such leadership would not suffice. So far as he was concerned, ‘ we shall have to overcome overt and covert resistance precisely among that layer [of the indigenous population] which, if any, would have to assume leading positions. We must expect lack of understanding of our goals as well as indo­ lence.’ Since, moreover, Bolshevism had stifled private initiative and managerial experience (he continued in a striking misreading of Soviet reality), Germany had to assume the ‘ burden’ of leadership and control.1 Such comforting rationales failed to resolve the tug-of-war among the German competitors. Initially, the economic branches of the armed forces had sought to attain maximum control over Eastern resources. Gradually, their role was whittled down, as were the economic functions of the civil administration. In their stead, economic agencies gained the ascendancy. Just as the WiRü Amt of the OKW was, piece by piece, absorbed and decimated by Speer’s Armament Ministry, similarly Pleiger and other civilians, in their dual capacity as representatives of the Four-Year Plan and of big business, all but eliminated the Army’s Economic Inspectorates from effective control.2 A report prepared for Friedrich Flick, a leading German industrialist, summarized the trend as of the fall of 1942 : Especially in the field of iron and mining, Herr Pleiger has lately eliminated the influence of the Eastern agencies [the Economic Inspector­ ates] to a far-reaching extent. In the question of ‘ foster enterprises’, the Inspectorates and Reich Commissars no longer have any say. The new head of WiStab Ost in Berlin, General Stapf, recently issued a directive that the ‘ foster-parents’ in mining are to be assigned by Herr Pleiger . . . and Herr Speer declared that the RKU and WiStab Ost no longer have anything to say in matters of armament enterprises. . . . In general, one can at present observe all along the line a strengthening of the influence of the monopoly companies, while the administrative apparatus of the economic agencies and the OKH (Wirtschaftsstab Ost) has lost much of its importance.3 1 Eugen Sieber, ‘ Finanzierung der Industriebetriebe im Ostraum’, Verein deutscher Wirtschaftswissenschafter, Osteuropäische Wirtschaftsfragen (Leipzig : Meiner, 1944), pp. 92-106. 2 On the Speer-Thomas struggle, see above, p. 316. 3 Küttner, ‘ Notiz für Herrn Flick’ , October 24, 1942, Document N I - i 9 8 i #. On Flick, see Louis P. Lochner, Tycoons and Tyrant (Chicago : Regnery, 1954), pp. 51 ff.

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The civilian administration suffered as much as the military. In a variety of memoranda to their chief, members of the Ostministerium complained in vain that the trusteeship companies should have been placed under their control from the very start.1 These companies had in fact acquired a momentum of their own and tended to reflect business rather than Party interests. In the Ukraine they boomeranged with a vengeance. Initially Koch had sponsored a score of government corporations in an attempt to wrench control of the economy from the Rosenberg office in Berlin and put it under his thumb. Actually by 1943 his civil administration (including its lower levels) was compelled to struggle against what it called the ‘ excesses’ of its corporations.2 Almost always, the administrative organs — civil and military alike — were the losers in their fight against the economic agencies — both governmental and private. At the same time, competition grew both among the governmentsponsored corporations seeking to encroach on each other’s jurisdic­ tion, and among German state agencies seeking to eliminate each other from the supervision of Eastern economic affairs. The details, complex and tedious, need not be unravelled here. Symptomatically, they produced an emphatic outburst from the customarily meek Finance Minister, Count Schwerin von Krosigk, a Nationalist hold­ over from pre-Nazi days who was close to German business circles. When the Four-Year Plan and the civil administration sought to restrict the Finance Ministry’s role in the East to a minimum, von Krosigk opened a blast against the occupation regime. Accusing the officials of ‘ risky deviations’ because of their pursuit of ‘ selfish motives’, he launched an indictment of the new bureaucracy. Serious doubts must arise [he wrote] when for some time organizations, companies, and formations of all descriptions sprout like mushrooms. . . . Even German officials hardly know their way around, and the population has to cope with an administrative superstructure it cannot fathom. . . . I am told by reliable quarters: ‘ We no longer know what constitutes an Authority and what does not; what is assigned to an Authority, what to a quasi-Authority company, and what to a big group of selfish hyenas on the battlefield ’. After this reference (which immediately dubbed the message as the ‘ hyena letter’) the Finance Minister continued : For tasks which could very well be entrusted to a special adviser to the Reichskommissar, there is created a company, whose head receives a 1 Interview G - 3 1 . 1 Körner, ‘ Die neue deutsche Ukrainepolitik’ [April 20, 1944], Document 1 1 9 8 - P S ; Frauenfeld, ‘ Denkschrift über die Probleme der Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’, February 10, 1944, Document N O -539 4 *, pp. 32 -3 .

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very high salary even by German standards but fabulous in the East. . . . Highly paid trustees are put into enterprises where modestly paid natives do the real work by virtue of their . . . better knowledge of conditions.1 Citing chapter and verse, the Finance Minister sought to bring about some change — at least in procedure, if not in policy. The upshot was, if anything, negative. Thereafter all direct correspondence between the East and the Finance Ministry was prohibited, and an effort was made to have Schwerin von Krosigk resign, with Koch and Bormann leading the assault against him.12

On only one issue did the German economic and civilian agencies see eye to eye, however much they quarrelled among themselves : the Eastern economy was not to be turned back to the indigenous population. Berlin was aware of the impact of this policy, and Rosenberg bluntly told the Führer that the fact that ‘ naturally the entire direction of the economy is in German hands has produced a deterioration of [popular] morale’ .3 Reports from various parts of the occupied territories urged a clear German pronouncement on indigenous property, if not in heavy industries and utilities (which no one on the spot demanded), at least in small-scale retail trade and real estate. The issue inevitably assumed political overtones. Bräutigam, in his oft-quoted memorandum of October 1942, noted that expropriation without compensation had cost the Bolsheviks heavily in popularity; German silence benefited the enemy, who could read into it anything he wanted.4 The military government officials meeting with the Ostministerium in December specified the range of possible reforms. In their opinion private property could be revived ‘ for small enterprises only’ , partly for political and partly for economic reasons. Their recommendation read : In industry, small enterprises, especially those which have been repaired by the population, shall be turned over to the people. Here, too [i.e. as in agriculture], the concept of private property must to some extent be revived.5 Now the Rosenberg Ministry took the unusual step of asking its agencies in the field to advance suggestions on the desirability of 1 Schwerin von Krosigk to Rosenberg, September 4, 1942, Document N G 4900, N M T , xiii, 885-91. 2 Walter Eckhardt, affidavit, Document Schwerin-von-Krosigk-49*. 3 Document 1520 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 285. 4 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung', October 25, 1942, Document 294-P S, T M W C , xxv, 336-7. 5 Protocol, December 18, 1942.

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transferring ‘ small enterprises’, primarily in trade and crafts, to private hands. The timeliness of the measure, it was argued, depended on the judgment whether the political benefit to be derived from it (as well as the anticipated increase in production) would outweigh the difficulties in controlling the flow of raw material and labour.1 At last a political factor was given some weight, even though no action was taken. The whole matter was particularly acute in the Baltic area, which had been singled out for preferential treatment. Elsewhere, nationalization had taken place so long ago as to reduce the urgency of the problem.2 In Ostland, on the other hand, pressure was considerable both from German and indigenous circles. Lohse, as was shown earlier, was in essence a ‘ statist’ who insisted on strict government regulation, if not outright ownership, of economy.3 He looked with scorn and fear upon all reprivatization efforts. In an address to his aides in Riga he emphasized that if there are already unceasing cries for reprivatization, especially from the Reich, and if they say that we — Ostland — would become the owners of the monopolies we have created, I can only repeat: we don’t want to talk about this today. This question will be decided after the war. I resist the desire of German concerns and big business to take over enter­ prises in Ostland; for, if a distribution of enterprises must take place, priority goes to those who today are risking their lives for the nation on the field of battle. . . . Thus provided with a ‘ patriotic ’ argument, Lohse espoused govern­ ment ownership or custody, vetoing all plans for reprivatization either by permitting German companies to take over or by returning proper­ ties to their former indigenous owners.4 Bräutigam had good reason to single out Lohse’s stand on the property issue in his indictment of German policy : 1 RM fdbO ., Chefgruppe Wirtschaftspolitische Kooperation, Informationsdienst, 1943, no. 2-3 (February-March), p. 2. 2 The old £migr£s who dreamt of regaining their possessions were decisively left out. T he official argument insisted that the Reich was not shedding its blood to ‘ restore the castles and latifundia* of the Russian grand-dukes who had caused the first World War. Hence ‘ the return of property to its former owners is out of the question ; they have no claim to restitution*. (Ostwirtschaft, xxxi, 73 ; RM fdbO., decree, Ju ly 27, 1943, R K U >Zentralblatt, ii [1943], 595 ) While moti­ vated above all by a desire to keep a group of meddling moribund aliens out of influence, this German decision, for once, met with approval among the population in the East. 3 See above, p. 187. 4 Lohse, speech, February 23, 1942, M S , Document Occ £ 3-5 4 /5 6 *, Y IV O ; Hadamowsky and Taubert, op. cit. p. 8. A hostile S D officer who had ample contact with Lohse described him as ‘ the principal enemy of reprivatization of [Baltic] real estate, which the Russians had nationalized in 1940 -1*. (Martin Sandberger, affidavit, Document N O -39 72*.)

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To the boundless surprise of the population [he wrote] the German administration [of Ostland] preferred to play the part of receiver of the goods stolen by the Bolsheviks. . . . Even after the Four-Year Plan gave up its initial objections, realizing that procrastination on the re­ privatization issue was harmful to German economic interests, the recognition — as a matter of principle — of pre-Bolshevik property relations failed to ensue, in violation of political common sense and as a result merely of the unfounded protests of the Reich Commissar [Lohse].1 It took long and difficult ‘ negotiations’ to push through, in February 1943, a general directive on the ‘ re-establishment of private property in the General Commissariats of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania’. It was finally implemented with a variety of con­ ditions attached, and some restitution followed, though its practical significance remained limited.12 The reform in the Baltic area was adopted primarily for political reasons: it reflected the slightly privileged status which the Baltikum was to enjoy in the future New Europe. The general relaxation of ‘ statism’ which occurred in 1942-3, partly under the pressure of economic concerns, partly as the result of political action, benefited German private business rather than the indigenous population. Soon a variety of companies moved in ; advertisements in the local press, especially in the Baltic area, announced the German concerns which had established branch offices. Their expansion was slow, however, and was handicapped by official restrictions and difficulties of transportation and supply. In overall terms, the economic significance of German firms doing business in the East remained small. The question of property rights remained basically unresolved, as German agencies vied with each other for economic power but joined enthusiastically in preventing the local population from becoming economic or political competitors through the device of private ownership. In Search of Profit By providing goods and services, the occupied areas were to defray the so-called ‘ internal occupation costs’, i.e. occupa­ tion expenditures of the Reich. It was a basic tenet of the 1 Bräutigam, op. cit. 2 Meyer, Recht, section O iii A n ; RM fdbO., Verordnungsblatt, ii (1943), 57. Some small-scale reprivatization had taken place earlier in the Baltic region ; see Probleme des Ostraumes (Berlin : RM fdbO., 1942), pp. 76-8 ; Braune Mappe, Teil A , 2nd ed., p. 12 ; Meyer, Recht, sections O iii Ga 1-4.

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Ostministerium that ‘ the costs of the total administration must be borne by the [occupied] country itself’.1 In addition, Berlin was resolved not only to have its troops live off the land but to have the Reich make a profit in the occupied areas. This was one purpose behind the establishment of govern­ ment monopolies, which were to reap financial gain from Eastern raw materials and mining. If the war cost billions, Hitler once declared, the East’s resources in minerals alone would make up a good part of the expenditure. The trusteeship companies, likewise, ‘ assured the attainment of profits as a contribution towards balancing war expenditures’.12 Our goal [Hitler stated] must be to reduce the war debt by from ten to twenty billion marks a year and thus become the only belligerent of this war to be free of war debts within ten years, and be in a position to concentrate, broadly speaking, on the colonization of the territories acquired. . . . The real profiteers of this war are ourselves.3 Under these circumstances, it was axiomatic that ‘ the Russian people must bear as much of the burden of the war as they are capable of bearing’ . The recipe was to keep their living standards and hence production costs as low as possible. . . . We shall open up a source of income for the Reich in this fashion [Goring asserted] which will make it possible to get rid of a substantial part of the debts assumed for the financing of the war within a few decades and with the greatest indulgence for the German taxpayer.4 The major instrument which Hitler foresaw for the enrichment of the Reich was trade : Germany would sell its goods at a high price and buy up Eastern products cheaply. We’ll supply cotton goods, household utensils, all the articles of current consumption. . . . My plan is that we should take profits on whatever comes our way. . . . All deliveries of machines, even if they’re made abroad, will have to pass through a German middleman, in such a way that Russia will be supplied with no means of production whatever, except of absolute necessities. 1 Rosenberg, memorandum, n.d., Document 1056-PS, T M W C , xxvi, 607. Picker, op. cit. p. 142 (entry for April 12, 1942) ; Sieber, op. cit. ; W iStab Ost to Goring, September 14, 1943, ‘ Materialsammlung’, p. 282d. 3 H T T , p. 625 (entry for August 1 1 , 1942). 4 Goring, directive, November 8, 19 41, Nagel to Thomas, November 25, 1941 *. Economy Minister Funk was reported to have stated that the East could pay off German war debts ‘ in twenty years’ . (Interview G -3 1.) For a more detailed contemporary discussion, see Professor Karl Theisinger, ‘ Kosten und Preise in den besetzten Ostgebieten’, Verein deutscher Wirtschaftswissenschafter, op. cit. pp. 107-25.

1

ui. wm

Germany and the Soviet Economy

This was the Führer’s position when the invasion began. later he still maintained that on the Eastern market

393 A year

we will buy up all the cereals and fruit, and sell the more trashy products of our own manufacture. In this way we shall receive for these goods of ours a return considerably greater than their intrinsic value. The profit will be pocketed by the Reich to defray the price of the campaign.1 The most significant device introduced for this purpose was the system of Schiensengewinne — profits derived from a ‘ sluice ’ operated by the Reich, which absorbed the price differential between the East and the outside world. ‘ If, for instance, the purchasing price for Russian grain was 75 marks [in occupied Russia], the difference between that and the Reich sales price of 180 marks was to be transferred to the Reich as “ sluice profits” .’ 12 The notion of buying cheaply and selling at a high price was an elementary and appealing rule of business which was bound to suit extremists like Bormann. As he correctly indicated, the sine qua non of its success was to keep prices and wages stationary in the East, ‘ and therewith of course the standard of living of the residents’.3 Once again, Nazi calculations were thwarted. The price gap yielded only a few hundred million marks. Moreover, a part of the profits thus accrued went into making up the inverse price differential — to permit the Reich to sell machinery and agricultural supplies imported to the East at prices the population could pay, by making up a part of the original cost from this fund of ‘ sluice profits’ .4 How the system would have worked over a longer period of time remains a matter of speculation. The idea itself was a landmark in German colonial thinking, both primitive and visionary.

Actual commercial policy for the East received little attention. While it was axiomatic that the occupying power would control the flow of goods, the exact forms of control were left undefined. This resulted largely from a state of mind concerned primarily with Erfassung — the term used for all forms of collection and seizure of 1 H T T , pp. 42-3, 6 17 (entries for September 25, 1941, and August 6, 1942). 2 Document Schwerin-von-Krosigk-49*. 3 Bormann, memorandum, March 25, 1942, Picker, op. cit. p. 136. Even Finance Minister Schwerin von Krosigk, who should have known better, chimed in that ‘ a substantial part of the war burdens are to be covered out of the financial surplus of the occupied Eastern territories and from the realization of the price differentials between Reich and East*. (Document NG-4900.) 4 Documents Schwerin-von-Krosigk-49* and 350 *. For the implementing directive, see Vierjahresplan, Food Department [Backe], Directive No. 6 to ZH O , March 21, 1942, Document N G -9 8 5 # ; and ‘ Materialsammlung’ , p. 1 5 1 .

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materials by the Reich. In practice, four types of commercial activity emerged in the occupied areas, three of them German planned and controlled ; the fourth, spontaneous and indigenous. At first the largest share of ‘ commercial transactions ’ was handled by the Army itself and its quartermaster branches (IV Wi). When they did not confiscate, the troops bought goods from the population to live off the land, just as they had been ordered. Later on, the Economic Inspectorates took over in a more systematic fashion many of the functions of former Soviet state trading agencies. Complex sets of directives regulated their activities.1 It goes without saying that they were not always adhered to. Arbitrary looting and ‘ purchasing’ occurred on a gigantic scale. A second form of commercial organization was a variant of the ubiquitous Ostgesellschaften. Ranging from the huge ZHO for agricultural produce to small companies concerned with single branches of economy in one commissariat, these government monopolies were under the supervision of the corporate body in Berlin, Reichsgruppe Handel. Their tasks also included supplying goods to the Germans stationed in the occupied areas and trading in the few consumer goods made available to the indigenous population.2 The third German organization was the private company, which was more active in trade than in other branches of economic life. Large commercial houses, generally those which had engaged in foreign trade, were encouraged to set up a colonial type of Faktorei system, i.e. to engage in direct barter of goods for local products. A number of German companies availed themselves of this opportunity.3 In addition to these officially sanctioned external trade institutions, there emerged locally a free market initiated and supported by the population itself. Not anticipating that the people could play any significant part in commercial activities, Berlin was surprised by the elemental outburst of trading initiative that occurred throughout the occupied area. Retail trade developed primarily through the channel of barter. With consumer goods in short supply, and with ample opportunities for the peasants to enrich themselves, German restrictions on trade — in the form of decrees posted at the market­ place, price control, or road blocks between towns — could not stop 1 Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 78-92 ; W iln Nord, Wirtschaftsgefüge, p. 3 1. Walter Estermann, in Wolliger Umbau der Wirtschaft in der Ukraine’ , Stuttgarter NS-Kurier> M ay 2, 1942, explains how within each W iK do ‘ every finished product is delivered to the central storehouse, from which sales and distribution begin’ — a somewhat stylized picture. 2 For the import of German equipment to bolster Eastern agriculture and industry working for the Reich, see above, p. 365. 3 See ‘ Handelseinsatz im Osten’, Der deutsche Volkswirt, xvi, no. 46 (August 14, 1942), 1470.

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the revival of a ‘ free’ market and of barter in finished products, which city dwellers traded to the peasants for eggs or flour. In the end, the German administration recognized the futility of fighting this black market. With infinitely more vital problems plaguing them, the authorities concluded that they would do well to condone this form of commerce, which relieved Germany of the responsibility for feeding the famished cities, which put goods into circulation, and which could have been suppressed only by a huge police force, which it did not possess. Hence the Ostministerium directed its agencies in the field to tolerate the black market and small-scale retail trade.1 Berlin yielded on this issue because the phenomenon could not be remedied. The surrender involved no forfeit of basic principles, and the alternative was increasing disdain for German rule and disregard of German decrees. Subjects and Objects The gigantic proportions of the black market reflected the lack of an orderly mechanism for exchange and the severe shortage of consumer goods. The lack of food and other elementary com­ modities rapidly became so serious as to have clear-cut repercussions on political allegiance. This disillusionment thrived on the coincidence of interests of two distinct power groups in the Reich. The Nazi extremists, on principle, saw no need to satisfy the popular desire for consumer goods. That part of the military which was absorbed in the intensive exploitation of economic resources for the armed forces likewise followed the maxim announced by the Wirtschaftsstab as early as November 1941 : ‘ For the duration of operations, the immediate demands of the troops have absolute priority’ over the demands of the people.2 Even though the importance of a shift in emphasis to consumer goods output was well recognized in Germany as a politically valuable proposition,3 ‘ the fight over the question whether to build up or tear down industrial installations hindered the production of items of mass consumption’.4 Even more, perhaps, this neglect was due, in the initial phases of the campaign, to a lack of concern for the aspirations and needs of the local residents. Not even the military government commanders, who were otherwise prone to 1 ‘ Illegal trade, so long as it is not professionally pursued, and involves small amounts, is to be tolerated until further notice. It is to be restricted or guided, in so far as possible, to markets limited in time and place. . . .* (RM fdbO ., Chefgruppe Wirtschaftspolitische Kooperation, Informationsdienst, 1943, no- 2-3, p. 7.) 2 ‘ Materialsammlung’ , pp. 203-4. 3 See, for instance, Sieber, op. cit. 4 Document H 9 8 -P S #.

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advocate such reforms, could offer hope for improvement. At their conference in December 1942 it was noted that ‘ only a very tiny and utterly inadequate share of consumer goods could be placed at the disposal of the population. Until further notice, nothing much can be changed in this respect.’ 1 The Army’s economic sections overruled those commandants who were more responsive to indigenous demands. This verdict typified the outlook towards the urban population in the East. It was particularly striking with regard to industrial labour. Indeed, the change in tactics towards Eastern industry brought about no change in German labour policy. Industrial labour was proportionately under-represented in the population that remained under the Germans. To a much greater extent than the other groups (except top administrators) workers had been evacuated eastwards ahead of the Soviet retreat. Those who remained were exposed to severe material hardship and near-starvation, especially during the first winter when the administration was still ham­ strung by vestiges of the ‘ de-industrialization ’ thesis. Considerable numbers of workers and their families moved back to the villages, where at least there was work and a chance of sustenance. Workers’ organizations, even the nominal trade unions, and the network of consumers’ co-operatives had broken down. Industrial labour as a social force scarcely figured in German calculations. There was no attempt either in pre-invasion planning or during the occupation to elaborate a systematic policy for the treatment of Soviet labour. In part, this may have been due to German suspicion that, Nazi propaganda notwithstanding, ‘ the proletariat’ was more closely identified with the Soviet regime than the other classes. In part, the absence of labour policy was due to the anticipated shake-up of the industrial matrix of the East. Once on the spot, the absence of large numbers of workers seemed to obviate the necessity for an integrated approach. Finally, the conflict between industrial re­ construction and forced labour in the Reich made impossible the formulation of propaganda slogans that could have effectively appealed to labour in the occupied areas. Indeed, the conflict in labour allocation was the major problem which German agencies in the East were compelled to face in this field. Typically, labour was treated merely as an object of ex­ ploitation, a resource.2 In December 1942, after the forced transfer 1 Protocol, December 18, 1942. 2 The only ‘ concession ’ made to urban labour was the assignment of private garden plots to worker families to grow their own vegetables. Though welcomed by the population, this measure stemmed from a desire to relieve the pressure on the economy.

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of labour to the Reich had been under way for a little more than half a year, the top military government officials agreed that ‘ a shameful contest [was] taking place among German agencies over these sources of labour*. And a few months later a German newspaperman confidentially reported that the city commandant of Zaporozh’e believed ‘ something could be made of the plants if Sauckel weren’t draining this region of more and more manpower*. At the same time, the Army directly recruited a number of local residents as informal helpers with military units.1 On native soil, industrial labour as such never rated consideration or preservation. Thus, with the peasantry accepted as a social group with which Germany had to contend and deal, labour remained in the shadow of an unresolved question mark. Given the hardships to which its surviving members were subjected, it was hardly surprising that they were among those who turned against the Germans at an early date. The leading Nazi propagandists, after touring the Donets Basin and other parts of the occupied territory, were obliged to conclude that so far, we have made no fundamental effort to appeal to [industrial] labour. For the moment . . . the workers see only that prices are excessively high ; the food bad; the social services to which they have been accustomed have been placed at the disposal of the Army ; and there is no hope for improvement.2 Only one group among the manual workers was the object of special and favourable attention, the artisans. German encourage­ ment of handicraft was in full harmony with the Nazi theory which extolled the virtues of artisans. Moreover, the effort to decentralize those phases of the Eastern economy which were not to be directed by the Reich implied a shift of emphasis to the least organized level of economic output: home handicraft and peasant art. According to Rosenberg, handicraft was also expected to foster the national consciousness of Ukrainians and Belorussians by stressing distinctive vocations and motifs. Finally, Soviet evacuation affected the large enterprises more systematically than the smaller ones. Under the circumstances, local production was easiest to restore. The artisans generally remained on the spot, and the resumption or expansion of their work required little capital. Formal encouragement of handicraft came more or less by default. Since consumer goods were not imported from the Reich and * Protocol, December 18, 1942 ; ‘ Materialsammlung’ , p. 173 ; Hans-Joachim Kausch, ‘ Bericht über die Reise’ , June 26, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - 1 1 * , Y IV O . 2 Hadamowsky and Taubert, op. cit. p. 38.

G .R .R .— 2 D

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industrial production in the East ‘ would naturally be modest’ , the remaining alternative was to foster crafts in-the occupied areas. ‘ For the immediate future’, the ‘ Brown Folder’ declared, handicraft ‘ must be assigned great significance’. Yet, as if afraid of breaking through the barriers of doctrine, it added, ‘ Only primitive goods come into consideration’ .1 In Ostland, artisans’ shops were returned to private operation as early as October 19 4 1.2 A general circular of the Ostministerium provided for a ‘ new order’ in the organization of artisan work in January 1942.3 Though the Russian system of artels (co-operatives) remained in force, German propaganda stressed that ‘ soon’ the artisans would be free to work on their own, either individually or in voluntary combinations. Actually German directives soon provided a mass of procedures and regulations governing the pursuit of each trade. In April 1942 directives issued in the Ukraine to encourage private initiative in the crafts made performance the yardstick of rewards.4 Though the shortage of artisans was considerable,5 Berlin exuded optimism — in large measure for political reasons. The new order of artisans, to be organized with all the traditional intricacies of masters, apprentices, and journeymen, was to be a ‘ valuable political support for u s’, wrote Bräutigam.6 Hence special care must be taken to select suitable cadres for the trades because ‘ independent artisans shall constitute the foundation of a new . . . stock of craftsmen’.7 Plans were even laid to import German specialists to relieve the shortage, conduct a training programme, and form model artisan co-operatives and workshops, though little was done along these lines. Even without them, handicraft witnessed a marked revival during the brief span of German rule.8 1 Braune Alappe, Teil A , 3rd ed., pp. 17 -18 . 2 M. Matthiessen, ‘ Fortschreitende Privatisierung*, Deutsche Ost-Korrespondenzy no. 14 (July 15, 1943). 3 See also Meyer, Recht, section O iii Ga 1. 4 V B -M , April 17, 1942 ; Walter Schellhase, ‘ Eigenständiges Wirtschaftsleben in der Ukraine’ , V B -M , April 18 and 19, 1942. 5 See above, pp. 305-8, for the struggle among German agencies over the desirability of delaying the mass murder of Jewish artisans. 6 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufbau im Osten : Wiederingangsetzung des Handwerks’ , Das Reich (Berlin), August 9, 1942. 7 ‘ Neuordnung des weissruthenischen Handwerks’, Reichsstelle für das Aus­ wanderungswesen, Nachrichtenblatt, xxv, no. 2 (February 15, 1943), 20. For text of decrees for Belorussia, see Meyer, Recht, section O iii Ga 5~52. 8 On the Ukraine, where Koch restricted German artisans to Volksdeutsche settlements, see Meyer, Recht, section U iii Ga 2-4 ; R K U , circulars, May 6, 1942, September 2 1, 1942, and February 24, 1943, R K U , Zentralblatt, i (1942), 4 16 ; ii (1943), 167-8 ; Erich Koch, ‘ Firste Aufbauerfolge in der Ukraine’, Hamburger Fremdenblatt, August 21, 1942.

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Transportation The other branch of Soviet economy singled out for favourable treatment by the Germans was transportation. Railroads, highways, and waterways involved no problems of private ownership and constituted no political menace to German goals. At the same time, improvement of transportation facilities was a prerequisite of German operations in peace and war. Even before the invasion, the economic and political planners were well aware of this,1 and after it got under way Hitler repeatedly referred to the necessity of improving rail and road transport in the East. The protracted war required enormous shipments of men and materiel to the front, and produce and forced labourers from the occupied areas to the Reich — all over thousands of miles of poor tracks and roads. During its retreat, the Red Army had destroyed river dams, exploded bridges, mined roads, and evacuated rolling stock. Transportation, a bottleneck under peace-time conditions, now became an exposed nerve of the German war effort, continuously under attack by enemy partisans. With the food situation in the Reich growing more severe, German officials were prone to concentrate their attention on the procurement problem in the East. It is characteristic of his pattern of thinking that Hitler himself took collection for granted and insisted that it was ‘ merely a transportation problem that has to be solved’ .2 This was the complex which he singled out in connection with his denial of all political and cultural rights for the Untermenschen. The opening up of the country [he declared] by means of transportation is one of the most important prerequisites for its mastery and economic exploitation. . . . This is the sole domain in which [the native population] must he ‘ educated’ by us.'> In line with his general view that ‘ the beginning of every culture expresses itself in road construction’ , Hitler envisioned a vast road-building programme. In my opinion [he told his associates] the construction of at least 750 to 1000 miles of thoroughfare is required, on military grounds alone. For unless we have unexceptionable roads at our disposal, we shall not be able either to mop up, militarily, the Russian spaces or make them permanently secure.4 1 Documents 10 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvi, 553 ; and 2 35 3-P S , T M W C , xxx, 277. See also Peter-Heinz Seraphim, ‘ Verkehrsstruktur und Verkehrsaufbau im Ostraum’ , Verein deutscher Wirtschaftswissenschafter, op. cit. p. 53. 2 Picker, op. cit. p. 180 (entry for Ju ly 9, 1942). 3 Picker, op. cit. p. 73 (entry for April 1 1, 1942). 4 H T T , p. 538 (entry for June 27, 1942).

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Problems and Practice

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Once again future and immediate problems were mingled in the Fiihrer’s plans. The more practical-minded German war econo­ mists insisted that the axis o f the Russian transportation system be shifted from a north-south to a west-east direction to facilitate shipments to and from the Reich. Here Hitler interjected the idea of extending the Autobahnen to Riga, Tallinn, and Novgorod in the north, and to the Ukraine and the Caucasus in the south; he was so taken by the prospect that he actually made plans for the width of the road-bed and the traffic regulations on these new super-highways.1 The SS, with its resettlement programme, and Ley’s ‘ Strength through Jo y ’ movement, with an eye on the Crimean ‘ spa’, enthusiastically pushed the proposal.12 The various organizations in the East meanwhile concentrated on roads of more immediate, military value. To keep up and expand the Rollbahnen, or major arteries of communication between the West and the front lines, such groups as Organisation Todt, the German Labour Service, local Soviet conscript battalions, prisoners of war, and ‘ allies’ of the Axis were used.3 Though some attention was paid to the development of ports and inland waterways, the role of shipping remained subordinate; too many harbour installations on the Baltic and Black Seas had been wrecked. While Lohse outlined an extensive programme for the reconstruction of the ports of Riga, Liepaja [Libau], and Vindavpils [Windau], Koch laid plans to export Ukrainian goods through East Prussian ports and worked on blueprints of canals that would lead through the various parts of his realm in a manner more satisfactory to his ego than to rational economics.4 Hitler himself assumed, no less naively, that a ‘ regulated inland waterway system was im­ possible’ in Russia because it ‘ has winter seven months of the year’ .5 The railway system, on the other hand, was of cardinal import­ ance. The task was, first, to repair existing facilities, then to expand the single to double-track lines, and eventually to solve the problem of smooth service over Soviet wide-gauge and Western normalgauge tracks. Numerous directives placed construction and opera­ tion of railroads under an intricate system in which the Reichsbahn and the Army shared control. The technical problems, infinitely 1 Picker, op. cit. pp. 138, 182 (entries for April 4 and July 18, 1942). 2 See above, p. 255 ; Grüne Mappe, Teil /, ist ed., p. 4 ; Document N G 1118 *. 3 See also Seraphim, op. cit. p. 52 ; Grüne Mappey Teil II, 3rd ed., pp. 12 9 -3 1. 4 Grüne Mappe, Teil /, ist ed., p. 4 ; Lohse, ‘ Ostland baut auf \ Nationalsozia­ listische Monatshefte (Berlin), January 1942, pp. 35-7 ; Document N O -539 4 #. 5 H T T , p. 447 (entry for April 27, 1942).

CH. xviii

Germany and the Soviet Economy

401

complicated by the partisans, who systematically put stretches of the main lines out of commission, were stupendous, and considerable attention was devoted to their solution.1 The Führer meanwhile, though regularly informed of the tremendous difficulties, continued to develop lunatic plans for express service to Moscow, the Donets Basin, and the Caucasus, with double-decker trains and freight cars capable of being converted to different gauges, and with precise specifications on who would be allowed to use first and second class accommodation.12 If the transportation network was thus promoted, it was in no sense a concession to popular aspirations. Here was one area in which the blueprints for a visionary future happened to coincide with the uncomfortable realities of the present in demanding improved facilities. Finance, Prices, and Wages Financial and monetary problems, though a significant part of German planning for the East, were not always to the fore. As a German expert pointed out, one of the ‘ advantages’ of a totalitarian economy was the ability to handle such problems as war financing in a noiseless fashion. Given the intricate and often overlapping activities of the innumerable agencies at work in the occupied areas, the budget provided virtually the only ‘ balance-sheet of the East’.3 The financial receipts in the occupied areas came largely from the trusteeship administration and state monopolies; from income, turnover, corporate, and consumption taxes; from custom duties, and a variety of fees. A large deficit had to be made up from two additional sources : direct contributions of the Reich government and long-term bonds. Expenditures included the cost of German administration, contributions to lower administrative echelons, health services, and other government functions; payments to make up price differentials on imported goods ; and subsistence payments for dependents of ‘ Eastern volunteers’ serving with the German armed forces. By far the largest, however, was the item called 1 Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 1 3 1 - 7 ; Braune Mappe, Teil A , 2nd ed., PP- 3 5 “^ ; Seraphim, op. cit. p. 54 ; and Hermann Teske, Die silbernen Spiegel (Heidelberg : Vowinckel, 1952). 2 Picker, op. cit. pp. 147, 156 (entries for April 27 and M ay 27, 1942). 3 Walter Labs, ‘ Die Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’ , Reichf Volksordnung, Lebensraum (Darmstadt), v (1943), 160 ; Sieber, op. cit. p. 92. On the efforts of the Finance Ministry to wrest control of Eastern finance from the Wirtschaftsstab and the Ostministerium, see above, p. 388, and Documents Schwerin-von-Krosigk 151 * and 15 3 * .

402

Problems and Practice

i >t .

m

‘ matricular contributions ’ — which amounted to payment for occupation costs.1 German policy demanded the continued collection of Sovietsponsored taxes; as a rule, their levels were to be maintained until, as was proposed, the entire tax structure could be overhauled. Significant downward changes were introduced only in the Baltic region, especially through the abolition of the turnover tax. Wage and income taxes remained the largest source of direct revenue, with considerable gradations prescribed for different levels of income. In the old Soviet areas, the turnover tax continued to be the largest revenue item, but a variety of other fees and levies were established with the aim of providing the administration with funds. Equally important was the free hand granted the German and indigenous administrations on the lower levels to impose additional taxes. Not only did fines alone often suffice to finance the rule of local poten­ tates, but on a number of items and transactions total collections from miscellaneous tolls and imposts (including dog taxes and window taxes) reached 50 per cent ad valorem. In practice, the wide range of means at the disposal of the occupying power, including direct requisition, allowed a maximum of goods to be extracted from the East.12 The official rate of exchange between German and local currencies was set at ten roubles to the mark. Rosenberg had initially intended to keep roubles as the currency unit for ‘ Muscovy’, but to introduce German marks in Ostland and establish new ‘ national’ currencies for the Ukraine and the Caucasus. Actually, only in the Ukraine was a different monetary unit introduced, with the karbovanets like­ wise set at one-tenth of a mark. The entire currency problem, Rosenberg frankly admitted, was of political rather than financial concern to him.3 German troops were issued a special type of occupation scrip, certificates drawn on special Reichskreditkassen; the purpose was partly to prevent German currency from falling into indigenous hands and to silence any popular complaints blaming the anticipated 1 For the Ostland budget for 1943, see below, p. 408 ; for the Ostland budget for 1942, see R K O , ‘ Haushalt des Reichskommissars für das Ostland für das Rechnungsjahr 1942** [Riga, 1942], W L . On the tax structure, see also Bräutigam, ‘ Übersicht*, pp. 54-5. 2 Grüne Mappe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 10 1-3 ; Theisinger, op. eit. ; Hadamowsky and Taubert, op. cit. ; Document 1056-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 608 ; Meyer, Recht, sections O iv and U iv ; Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), December 19 4 1, p. 26. 3 Documents 10 30 -P S and 10 3 1-P S , T M W C , xxvi, 578-84. For the diffi­ culties stemming from the introduction of karhovantsy in the Ukraine, see ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 285-6.

cn. xviii

Germany and the Soviet Economy

403

deterioration of living conditions on the introduction of German currency. The Reichskreditkassen, with branches in a number of localities on occupied territory (as in other German-held countries), were at first established to pay only German personnel but were soon authorized to make loans to local communities, provided they were in the German interest.1 Later, the network of German credit banks was declared to have been intended merely as an ‘ intermediate solution’. As they fortified their realm, both Koch and Lohse obtained sanction to establish separate banks in their commissariats. Thus in 1942 there emerged in the Ukraine and Ostland each a Notenbank, analogous to the Reichsbank in Germany, empowered to issue local currency and to engage in a variety of transactions, from the issuance of short-term loans to the purchase of gold ; and a network of Wirtschaftsbanken whose primary purpose was to engage in non-cash transactions in financing Eastern economic activity, encourage savings, and arrange for German capital investment in the East.12 Except in the Baltic region, however, cash continued to play a minor role in the lives of people, who, fearing that the new occupation roubles would become valueless, preferred tangible goods to money. With purchasing power and availability of goods exceedingly low, a large share of local transactions was in the form of barter. Only in the future, after the war, did Germany expect the financing of the Eastern economy to become a major problem.3 ‘ The level of prices and wages’, the ‘ Green Folder’ declared in a logical corollary to the basic directives, ‘ must be kept as low as possible so as to enable the Reich further to receive cheaply from the occupied Eastern territories grain and other products which are important for the Reich, and also to restrict consumption [in the East] by means of maintaining [low] wage levels.’ 4 1 See Grüne Mappe, Teil I, ist ed., pp. 24-5 ; Teil II, 3rd ed., pp. 93-10 0 ; Braune Mappe, Teil A , 2nd ed., pp. 29-33 \ and Document Schwerin-von-Krosigk 1 5 1 * . For a list of branches and a discussion of their operation, see Louis E. Davin, Les Finances de 1939 d 1945, I I : L yAllemagne (Paris : Librairie de M&dicis,

1949),

PP- 2 8 0 - 8 .

2 In Ostland, the new banks had a more limited function because private German houses were permitted to establish branches. See ‘ Bank- und Finanz­ wesen in der Ukraine’ and ‘ Geld- und Kreditwesen in der Ukraine*, Ostkartei (Berlin), Heft v, 110s. 9 and 13 (July and November 1943) ; ‘ Reprivatisierung des Bankenwesens’ , Der deutsche Volkswirt, xv, no. 47 (August 22, 1941), 82 ; Meyer, Recht, sections O iii Fa and U iii Fa ; ‘ Materialsammlung’, pp. 284-8. 3 For a discussion of future plans, see Sieber, op. cit. pp. 92-106. For a Soviet discussion, see Alexander Alekseev, Voennye finansy kapitalisticheskikh gosudarstv (2nd ed., Moscow : G I P L , 1952), ch. xii. 4 Grüne Mappe, Teil II, 3rd ed., p. 103.

404

Problems and Practice

p i

. in

German price policy had two aim s: the establishment of maximum prices and the stabilization of price levels. Any violations were to be ‘ ruthlessly punished’ . Initially, prices were fixed at the levels established by the Soviet authorities; soon, however, diffi­ culties arose which made it necessary to adjust and change the price structure. The minimum price, the German economists stipulated, was to ‘ assure the ability to work on the basis of a subsistence minimum’. Because costs of production (often fluctuating more than ioo per cent in a week) were an inadequate measure for setting prices, an intricate system of ‘ calculated prices’ was introduced, in effect permitting upward revisions in many fields. Wherever possible, the German price structure was followed at a lower level; i.e. the ratio of prices for different goods was to approximate that in Germany, while absolute figures were to remain as far as possible below those of the Reich.1 Given the situation in the occupied areas, it was futile to expect complete compliance. Fines were levied for violations, but blackmarket operations and high black-market prices had to be tolerated. ‘ Measures of price formation’ , Berlin wrote, ‘ are formally valid everywhere. However, their actual application is restricted to the realm of officially directed collection and distribution.’ 2 Wage regulation proved no less intricate. With the minimum wage as a goal, only certain special categories were awarded high ration quotas, either to boost production (for instance, miners) or to assure them of privileged status (for instance, Volksdeutsche and the Baltic groups as compared with the Slavs). Low wages for the Easterners were ‘ justified’ because of ‘ differences [between them and the Germans] in racial qualities and in the level of culture and education’ . In actual practice, so many difficulties arose that no 1 Bruno Wurst, Die Preisbildung im Warenverkehr mit den . . . besetzten Gebieten (Stuttgart : Forkel, 1943), pp. 65-74 \ Theisinger, op. cit. ; ‘ Kalkulierte Preise in der Ukraine’ , Hamburger Fremdenblatt, June 10, 1943 ; Grüne M appe, Teil //, 3rd ed., pp. 10 4 -11 ; Braune Mappe, Teil A y 2nd ed., pp. 33-4 ; Meyer, Recht, sections O iii H and U iii H ; RM fdbO ., Preisvorschriften (Berlin, I 943 >Among the reasons necessitating an abandonment of the Soviet price structure was the divergence of the Soviet system of ‘ catalogue prices’ from the Reich’s Preisstop techniques. Moreover, many prices had been determined by the Soviet turnover tax ; as a result of the occupation, the supply of raw materials and the distribution system were so disrupted as to necessitate an altered basis of calculation and therefore a changed interrelation of prices for different goods. For political reasons, the scale of prices was set so that Ukrainian prices would not exceed 50 per cent of German prices, while in the Baltic area agricultural goods could reach 60 per cent and some industrial products 80 per cent of German prices ; prices in Latvia and Estonia were higher than in Lithuania, and all the foregoing were considerably above those in Belorussia. 2 RM fdbO ., Chefgruppe Wirtschaftspolitische Kooperation, op. cit. p. 7.

cii. xvm

Germany and the Soviet Economy

405

attempt was made to attain uniformity in wages.1 Instead, a system was evolved that provided for sliding wage levels for different professions with variations from area to area — complex but on the whole easier to enforce and control than price regulations. However, in spite of all variations, the over-all approach was the sam e: pressure for the lowest possible prices, wages, and standards of living.2 Summing Up German economic policy in occupied Russia was purposefully intended to be the handmaiden of long-range colonization plans. It meshed with the theories of German domination and settlement of the newly conquered spaces. Henceforth, ‘ the residents of the conquered areas shall be permitted to consume only a part of their production. The balance shall be left to the Staatsvolk [i.e. the Germans] in compensation for its political leadership.’ 3 It was no accident that Hitler repeatedly depicted the conquest of Russia as the stroke that would free the Reich from the necessity of seeking colonies overseas. The difficulties in realizing these designs were deep-seated and numerous. The incompetence, selfishness, and corruption of a large segment of those who wandered east to enrich themselves frustrated the implementation of clearly formulated goals — not by mitigating them in favour of a more understanding approach but by imposing a superstructure of personal interests and ambitions. The conflicts among German economic interests and bureaucracies made uniform enforcement even more chimeric. Most substantial perhaps, as an obstacle to the realization of the blueprints drawn up in Berlin, was the course of the war and of the occupation itself. A combination of unforeseen — though by no means unforeseeable — circumstances necessitated a substantial retreat in day-to-day operations from the fantastic visions for the future. With the prolongation of the conflict, the depletion of German resources, and the devastation of the homeland and its industrial installations, total war made mandatory the utilization of every resource the Reich could marshal. In victory, Berlin could afford to spurn the help of the conquered, its men and its industry. In defeat, the exigencies of war commanded once again a retreat from dogmatic 1 Among the problems was the desirability of keeping rural-urban differentials * the disappearance of Soviet low-rent policy ; and the effect of forcible wage equalization on the price equilibrium. 2 On wage policy, see Grüne Mappe, Teil II, 3rd ed., pp. 1 1 1 - 2 2 ; Meyer, Recht, sections O iii B and U iii B ; R K U , Zentralblatt, i (1942), 10 3-5. 3 Deutsche Arbeitsfront, Arbeitswissenschaftliches Institut, op. cit. p. 2.

406

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

preconceptions to a new realism based on uncompromising selfinterest. Only as a by-product did these uneasy changes of tactics constitute a ‘ concession’ to an already alienated population in the occupied East. Whether or not German economic policy would have produced the results Berlin sought, had the war not been lost, one cannot easily decide. The German occupation was too short to carry out the Nazi programme, and war conditions compelled substantial, though perhaps ‘ temporary’, aberrations from ultimate goals. Nor can the German experience be taken as a test case of an alternative to Soviet economic controls and institutions : the abnormal con­ ditions, to which Soviet evacuation and scorched-earth policy had contributed, produced a unique and most atypical situation. Berlin, however, failed even in its most immediate go al: that of making the East contribute substantially to the German war effort. According to the best available German statistics, non-agricultural deliveries of raw materials to the German authorities totalled about 725 million RM ; these were offset by an import of 535 million marks’ worth of equipment and coal to the East (not counting those to the Wehrmacht in the East); thus leaving a net profit of a mere 190 million RM. To this, it is true, should be added not only various services, such as transportation and billeting, provided by the population and not statistically accounted for, but industrial labour performed on the spot for the Army, estimated at an equivalent of 500 million RM . Even adding the more extensive agricultural deliveries, discussed in the preceding chapter, the total remains unimpressive. D e l iv e r ie s

from t h e

O c cu p ied E a st e r n T

er r ito r ies to

G erm an y

(in millions of Reichsmarks, approximate figures) Agricultural deliveries from the occupied East German counter-deliveries to Eastern agriculture

4000 500

Net German import

3500

Raw material and industrial deliveries Industrial work for the Arm y

3500

725 500 1225

German counter-deliveries of equipment and coal

535 690

690 419

°

Though actually considerably too low, these official figures indicate an approximate magnitude of tangible results. The contri­ bution of the occupied East to the Reich itself, despite more brutal exploitation and despite its much greater area and resources, on the

cm

.

xvni

Germany and the Soviet Economy

407

record amounted to only one-seventh of what the Reich obtained from France ! 1 If the contribution of the conquered spaces of Russia and the Ukraine, Crimea and Belorussia was smaller than either the German leadership or Western analysts might have expected, the impact of the exploitation policy, both in goals and methods, was amply sufficient to alienate the overwhelming part of the indigenous population in the occupied areas. By the time the Germans, in their turn, embarked on a scorched-earth policy, they had driven the bulk of the people into opposition. Once in retreat, the last vestiges of consideration and inhibition were gone, and a belated effort was made to evacuate and destroy everything within reach. As a result of this double destruction — Soviet and German — the three-score million who lived under the German occupation found themselves, at the end of the second World War, in a territory desperately ravaged and impoverished. 1 Forschungsstelle für Wehrwirtschaft, Arbeitsstab Ausland, 'D ie finanziellen Leistungen der besetzten Ostgebiete bis 3 1. März 1944*, October 10, 1944, Docu­ ment 86-EC , N C A , viii, 277. This includes only deliveries to the Reich itself. It is probably a fair guess that the official statistics through March 1944 reflect about half the actual goods and services provided. T he so-called ‘ matricular contributions' exacted from Ostland and Ukraine in 19 4 2 -4 totalled 1100 million R M , and outstanding claims against bank notes issued in the East amounted to about 1500 million R M , a total of another 2*6 billion. This figure also constituted a small fraction of the total financial contribution of all German-occupied countries in the second World War, which came to about 100 billion. (See Karl Brandt et aLy Management of Agriculture and Food in the German-Occupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe [Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1953], pp. 6 16 -18 ; Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, ‘ Wie wurde der zweite Weltkrieg finanziert ?' Bilanz des zweiten Weltkrieges [Oldenburg : Stalling-Verlag, 1953], PP* 3 2 1-2 .) The above figures do not include the goods and services rendered in the East or by Ostarbeiter and Eastern members and auxiliaries of the German armed forces and police units.

[A n n e x overleaf

408

Problems and Practice

P T.

lit

ANNEX O S T I.A N D B U D G E T FO R 1943 (In Reichsmarks) 1

Receipts Wage, income, turnover, corporate, consumption taxes, and custom duties Absorption of excess profits of German enterprises State Monopolies Contribution of the German Reich to cover deficit Long-term bonds to cover deficit Trusteeship Administration State Farms Other Administrative receipts : fees, tuition, radio Price control administration T o ta l

13.360.000 1,600,000 102,625,000 440,000,000 796,762,150 16.350.000 4,406,150 46.410.000 18,062,750 1»439. 576,050

Expenditures Costs of German administration Subsistence for dependants of Eastern volunteers Price differential on imported goods Price differential on imported agricultural machinery Schools for Volksdeutsche Contribution to budget of deficit finance districts Interest and paying off earlier credits Other administrative expenditures : health services, etc. Matricular contribution to the German Reich : For the Army, including area of military government For the police For technical services and Organisation Todt For customs border guard Retroactive payment for 1942 [none provided in 1942 budget] T otal

1 Based on [anonymous,] ‘ Besatzungskosten rounded approximations.

44,421,832 33 . 347 , 5° °

6,901,000 16,358,150 2,720,300 5,000,000 27,232,018 8,653,100 660.000. 000 120.000.000 85,180,000 15,000,000 414,762,150

1 M S *.

, ,

4 3 9 5 7 6 ,0 5 0

The above figures are

C H A P T E R XI X

P R I S O N E R S OF WAR H it l e r : Do you know that these are all Untermenschen ? Cannibals ! T h ey eat each other up. . . . T he D a n ish M in is t e r : From hunger, excellency ?

N azi Premises T h r e e groups of Soviet citizens were objects of special German attention: prisoners of war, forced labour working for the Reich, and formations of military collaborators recruited to fight on the German side. The earliest to require Nazi policy formulation were the prisoners of war. Relatively little advance planning had been devoted to the treat­ ment of the prisoners. The Nazis had assumed that the war would be brief, and Rosenberg’s staff was preoccupied with blueprints for the long-range future. The military, who had given the question some consideration, had made only perfunctory preparations to handle it. The one striking exception to this lack of forethought was Hitler’s ‘ commissar decree’ , which, as discussed earlier, ordered the liquida­ tion of all Soviet political officers captured by the German Army.1 A pre-invasion order did divide jurisdiction over Soviet prisoners of war. In the theatre of operations, responsibility went to the O KH ; in the Zone of the Interior, to the Prisoner of War Section of the so-called General Armed Forces Department [Allgemeines Wehrmachtsamt, or AW A] of the OKW .2 In addition to the basic Army responsibility, some operations — the liquidation of certain categories and the segregation of others — were assigned to the SS. The problem was so big, especially during the first months of the war in the East, because of the unexpectedly large numbers of prisoners who fell into German hands. By mid-December 1941 Germany held over 3,800,000 Soviet captives.3 The German Army, 1 See above, pp. 63-4 ; and pp. 68-9 on early developments. 2 A W A remained responsible for prisoner-of-war affairs until September 1944. (O K W /A W A , K gf.-Abt., ‘ Kriegsgefangenenwesen im Fall “ Barbarossa” \ June 16, 19 41, Document 988-P S*. See also Document N O -5 5 3 9 * ; and [O KW /W iRii Amt,] ‘ Vermerk über Ausführungen des Reichsmarschalls \ November 1 1, 19 4 1, Document 1206-P S, T M W C , xxvii, 67.) 3 Hitler, speech, December 1 1, 19 41. See also above, p. 69, and p. 427 below. By October the problem was acute enough for Hitler to complain : ‘ We used to say : “ L e t’s take prisoners ! ” Now we think : “ What are we to do with all these prisoners (H T T , p. 54.)

4io

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

increasingly hard-pressed to maintain its schedule and itself often poorly supplied, did not (and sometimes could not) care adequately for the wretched millions that were herded together at improvised camps dotting the occupied countryside. While unforeseen conditions were a factor contributing to the neglect and mistreatment of the prisoners, the basic determinant of policy was the Untermensch philosophy. ‘ Ruthless and energetic action’, the Prisoner of War Section decreed, ‘ will be taken at the slightest signs of restiveness’ on the part of Soviet prisoners. ‘ Radical suppression of any resistance, active or passive ! ’ 1 After the invasion began, the same note was sounded in a set of instructions to the commanding generals of the Army Group Rear Areas : In line with the prestige and dignity of the German Army, every German soldier must maintain distance and such an attitude with regard to Russian prisoners of war as takes account of the bitterness and in­ human brutality of the Russians in battle. . . . In particular, fleeing prisoners of war are to be shot without preliminary warning to stop.123 On such ‘ basic’ points there was no disagreement. However, policy conflicts crystallized at an early date around three main issues. In addition to the ‘ commissar decree’ , these were: the use of prisoners as labour and the application of German nationality policy to the captives. Indices of Treatment: Labour and Nationality Pre-invasion orders had provided that labour companies could be formed from among enemy prisoners, but only ‘ by the forces in the field for their own labour requirements (road and bridge construction, clearing land, cultivation, etc.)’. There was to be ‘ no allocation of prisoner-of-war labour w'ithin the [German] economy’ . ’ This prohibition remained in effect for several months. In late fall, Goring ordered that, in the area of operations, prisoners were to relieve German construction battalions, for ‘ German skilled labour belongs in armament production ; shovelling and stone-breaking are 1 Document 9 8 8-P S*. 2 O K H to Befh. H. Geb., Ju ly 25, 19 41, Document N O K W -18 2 * . In Septem­ ber a clause was added providing that ‘ all indulgence or fraternizing [Anbiederung] is to be punished most severely’ . All resistance of the prisoners, even passive, ‘ must be entirely eliminated immediately by the use of arms (bayonet, rifle butt, or firearm)’ . Directives provided for the punishment of German guards who were negligent in these matters. (O K W /A W A , K gf.-A b t., ‘ Anordnungen für die Behandlung sowjetischer K r.G e f.’ and ‘ Merkblatt für die Bewachung Sowjet. Kriegsgefangener’, September 8, 19 4 1, Document 15 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 2 7 3 -8 3 ) 3 Document 98 8-P S*. It added : ‘ N o payment for work done’ .

CH. XI X

Prisoners of War

4 11

not their task ; that’s what the Russians are there for’.1 Originally, Hitler himself had forbidden the infusion of Soviet prisoners into the Reich for labour purposes. This decision was apparently motivated by a desire to relieve the strain on transportation facilities and, equally important, by a fear of racial contamination resulting from an inter-mixture of Untermenschen with Germans.2 Barely two weeks after the invasion had begun, an officer of the AWA stated that a relaxation of the Führer’s prohibition could be expected. By August 26 a special directive had been issued by the Labour Minister concerning the use of Soviet captives, and early in September, the Army’s summary instructions for the treatment of prisoners included a section on ‘ their employment as labour in Reich territory’ . As yet they were to be used only in jobs for the Army, in order to keep them segregated from the civilian population and also to assure the Army’s continued control over them. How­ ever, the possibility of civilian employment was already looming up clearly.3 Another two months passed before the restrictions on the use of prisoners in the Reich were fully lifted. On October 31, in accord­ ance with the Führer’s instructions, Keitel ordered the ‘ large-scale’ utilization of Soviet captives even in German war industry, for ‘ the lack of workers is becoming an increasingly dangerous hindrance to the future German war and armament effort’.4 A few days later, Goring elaborated on these instructions, using the somewhat un­ expected argument that ‘ Russian manpower had proved its capacity of performance in the construction of the tremendous Russian industry’ . Detailed orders followed for the employment and guarding of captive labour. For instance, prisoners were to be quartered, as before, in separate barracks and denied contact with others ; punitive regulations remained virtually unchanged. ‘ The scale of punishment knows no intermediate steps between restriction of rations and summary execution.’ As for food, the decision was 1 [Vierjahresplan,] ‘ Besprechung vom 7 .1 1 .1 9 4 1 über den Einsatz von Sowjet­ russen*, Document 119 3 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 56. 2 O K W /W iRü Amt, ‘ Vermerk*, Ju ly 4, 19 41, Document 119 9 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 63 ; W iFStab Ost, ‘ Niederschrift über die Sitzung’ , July 3 1 , 1941, W i/ ID .11 6 * , C R S , p. 10. 3 Document 119 9 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 63 ; Reichsarbeitsminister, ‘ Einsatz von Sowjet. Kriegsgefangenen*, August 26, 19 41, Document 3005-PS, T M W C , xxxi, 474-6 ; Document 15 19 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 280. A curious sidelight on personal pressures is shed by a request for 10,000 Russian prisoners of war for the Hermann Goring Works, submitted as early as September 2, 1941, by Körner, who was a high official of these enterprises and of course also head of W iFStab Ost. (Körner to Syrup, September 2, 1941, Document N I-374 6 , N M T , xiii, 962.) 4 O K W /W F S t/L [Keitel], ‘ Kriegsgefangeneneinsatz in der Kriegswirtschaft*, October 3 1, 1941, Document 19 4 -E C , N C A , vii, 336.

412

Problems and Practice

PT . I l l

that ‘ the Russian is easily satisfied and therefore easy to feed without special strain on our own food supplies. He must not be spoiled or accustomed to German fare. . . .’ 1 The pressure for more labour was so great that within five months after the start of the Eastern campaign Berlin recognized that the ‘ position of the Führer in the question of employing prisoners of war in industry [had undergone] a fundamental change’. Therefore, ‘ all agencies are to further the utmost exploitation of Russian labour pow er'.2 The volte-face was complete. The second issue was the nationality problem as it related to the prisoner situation. In pre-invasion days both the Abwehr and the Rosenberg staff, it will be recalled, had placed primary emphasis on working with the non-Russian nationalities of the U .S.S.R . It was entirely logical for these two organizations to favour the segregation of non-Russians from Russians among the prisoners of war, and to advocate better treatment for the non-Russians.3 German vacillation on this issue is curious. If German reluctance to use prisoners in Reich industries was due in part to anticipated disloyalty and subversion and, further, if, as was at times assumed, anti-German sentiment was weakest among non-Russian prisoners, it would have been logical to use, first of all, Ukrainians, Belo­ russians, and other ‘ minorities’ for labour in the Reich. However, as a matter of utility it was far simpler to use Russian-speaking prisoners, who could be controlled more easily by that body of trained German personnel who at least knew their language. Further­ more, in line with the regional build-up projected by Rosenberg, Ukrainians and Belorussians were to be eligible for release from prison camps and therefore were not scheduled to work in the Reich. Finally, ideological objections to the use of ‘ Asiatics’ such as Turkestanis and Mongols were even stronger than in the case of the Russians. The earliest policy directive thus recommended that if use as labour is permitted in the Reich, certain nationals (Belorussians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, etc.) would have to be exempted. 1 Document 119 3 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 56-8. 2 Document 120 6 -P S, T M W C , xxvii, 65-9 ; italics in original. Hitler’s reversal is illustrated in an informal conversation he had the following month : ‘ If we employ Russian labour, that will allow us to use our nationals for other tasks. It’s better worthwhile to take the trouble of knocking the Russians into shape than to fetch Italians from the South. . . . A Russian is not so stupid, after all, that he can’t work in a mine.’ (H T T , p. 158 [entry for December 29, 1941].) 3 Interview G -6. It is interesting that during the pre-invasion period, when comparatively little planning was directed towards the prisoner-of-war problem, an order did provide for their segregation by nationalities. (Document 9 8 8-P S*.)

oh

.

xix

Prisoners of War

413

Likewise prisoners of war of Asiatic features should in no case be brought as labour to the Reich.1 Meanwhile the segregation of prisoners by nationalities was being carried out according to the summary directives of September 8. The list of nationalities to be separated now included, in addition to the Volksdeutsche and those mentioned above, Lithuanians, Rumanians, and Poles, who could easily be returned to their home countries; and Georgians, the favourites of the Ostministerium. The non-European nationalities were not listed as worthy of segrega­ tion from the Russians: the Untermensch policy was still in its heyday, and the Asiatics were its scapegoats. The decision to release non-Russian prisoners, provided their homes were in territory already seized by the Germans, mirrored a combination of dogmatic and practical considerations. It accorded better status to the non-Russians and relieved the Army of responsi­ bility for large masses of men at a moment when its hands were full. It also facilitated the task of the German economic agencies, which were already complaining about the shortage of young healthy males for work in the occupied areas. Ukrainians were released in consider­ able numbers as early as Ju ly ; after the capture of Kiev, more prisoners were freed. Often German officers required someone to identify and vouch for the liberated men — either a relative or a resident of the captive’s home locality; in such a manner, many women ‘ selected husbands’ from among the prisoners, saving the men from starvation. For a time, the German press reported this wholesale release with enthusiasm. Many of these Ukrainian women walked 200 kilometres by foot or came by cart to look for their husbands in the prisoner camps. . . . ‘ Adolf Hitler restores you your freedom’, an interpreter shouts to his fellowinmates, and loud shouts of rejoicing, accompanied by a joyful waving of discharge certificates, are the reply. . . .12 Whether or not they chanted thanks for their deliverance, there is little doubt that the prisoners were happy. More often than not, they thus saved their lives. Before long, hundreds of thousands 1 Document 119 9 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 63. 2 ‘ Der Marsch in die Freiheit — Ukrainische Kriegsgefangene kehren heim ’, Signal (Berlin), November 1, 19 4 1, p. 8 ; Einsatzgruppen Report, no. 37 (July 29, 19 4 1)* ; Bräutigam, ‘ Vortragsnotiz für den Herrn Reichsminister’, October 13, 19 4 1, Document 0 8 2-P S *. Hitler later gave his sanction to the release of Ukrainian PW s, with the understanding that they would be usefully employed in the German interest. (Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über eine Besprechung beim Führer am 29. September 1941 im Führerhauptquartier’ , October 2, 19 4 1, E A P 99 /110 *, C R S .)

G.R.R.— 2 E

4*4

Problems and Practice

i>T. I l l

thus freed were working on the farms, clearing wrecked factories, or helping in enterprises which the Germans had earmarked for reconstruction. In spite of its discriminatory nature, this policy did provide relief for a goodly number of men. However, just as it was gaining momentum, it was abandoned. The civilian administration, both in Belorussia and the Ukraine, opposed the release of prisoners. For Koch, the very notion of privileges for the Ukrainians was anathema, and this feeling was combined with a resentment against the military who favoured them. In addition, in Belorussia the fear that former prisoners would join the growing partisan movement was widespread, and was not entirely unfounded. After the conflict with the Galician nationalists in July 1941, Berlin had undergone a change of heart and no longer wished to place the Ukrainians as a group in a privileged position. Finally, a number of army commanders themselves sought to retain groups of prisoners under their control in order to use them as labourers attached to their units. The reversal came after scarcely four months of the ‘ release’ policy. As early as November 1941 Goring heralded the new line : ‘ Ukrainians enjoy no special treatment. The Führer has ordered that henceforth they are not to be released from captivity.’ 1 The German civil administration increasingly placed the blame for its partisan problems on former Soviet troops — to the point of re­ arresting those whom the Army had freed a few months earlier. ‘ As a result of this nonsensical action’, a former Belorussian official relates, ‘ only few were actually seized ; the others took to the woods and now in fact provided the heretofore embryonic partisan movement with militarily trained cadres.’ 2 German conduct had once more proved contradictory. The reversals of policy invariably brought in their wake a deterioration of the Reich’s standing in the eyes of the population. The Prisoners and Their Masters While Berlin argued and the armies fought, the prisoners died. Testimony is eloquent and prolific on the abandonment of entire divisions under the open sky. Epidemics and endemic diseases decimated the camps. Beatings and abuse by the guards were commonplace. Millions spent weeks without food or shelter. Car­ loads of prisoners were dead when they arrived at their destination. Casualty figures varied considerably but almost nowhere amounted 1 Document 119 3 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 59 ; and interview G -12 . crisis, see above, Chapter VI. 2 [Ludwig Golubovich,] ‘ Okkupatsiia Belorussin, M S * , p. 10.

For the I/vo v

cH. xix

Prisoners of War

415

to less than 30 per cent in the winter of 1941-2, and sometimes went as high as 95 per cent.1 Though clearly aware of the prisoners’ plight, the Nazi authorities adopted a pose of righteous indignation over the behaviour of the sufferers. Goring, who predicted the death of ‘ twenty to thirty million’ Russians in a year, told Ciano that ‘ . . . in the camps for Russian prisoners of war, after having eaten everything possible, including the soles of their boots, they have begun to eat each other, and what is more serious, have also eaten a German sentry’.12 Nazi propaganda made the most of such instances to reinforce the Unter­ mensch fixation. Yet, as a German officer reflected after the war, ‘ Nazi propaganda reported in horror instances of cannibalism. . . . But it failed to mention a single word about how such incidents could have taken place . . . not daring to tell their own German men the real, deeper reasons for this entire process.’ 3 German policy had caused, or at the very least had tolerated, the degradation of the prisoners — and then held it up to its own people as something to be reviled, as something typical of a sub-human who could never be like Western man.4 Some of the German officials responsible for prisoner-of-war affairs consciously fostered this approach. In the winter of 194 1-2 the head of the OKW prisoner section is reported to have sanctioned the poisoning of all prisoners unable to work. At the same time, a personal friend of Himmler’s on duty in the East wrote back recom­ mending that half the Russian prisoners be shot so as to leave double rations for the remaining half, thus ‘ having real labour available’. And from the fall of 1941 on, when the SS began receiving its quota of prisoners for the concentration camps, atrocities and extermina­ tions mounted. One of the most arresting documents among all those found at the end of the war is a bitter protest from the infamous 1 In addition to numerous memoirs, the Nuremberg trial records contain extensive documentation and testimony on this question, as do the reports of the Soviet Extraordinary Commission for the Investigation of Atrocities. See also the Soviet compilations, We shall not forgive ! (Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1942) and Dokumenty ohviniaiut (Moscow : Gospolitizdat, 1 943-5), 2 vols. For a German account, see Karl I. Albrecht, Sie aber zverden die Welt zerstören (Munich : Herbert Neuner, 1954), PP* 201-7. 2 Ciano's Diplomatic Papers (London : Odhams, 1948), pp. 464-5. 3 Buchardt, pp. 55-6. 4 ‘ I did not want to believe my eyes’, an observer wrote, 'that this was a Bol­ shevik soldier, or any soldier, or even a human being. . . . Where we would expect a face, there was a wild affair for which one could find no parallel in any zoology text in the world. . . . With a few pushes and punches this obstreperous ape-man was hurried on. . . .’ (Karl Schwarz, ‘ Das Gesicht des bolschewistischen Feindes’, Geist der Zeit [Berlin], M ay 1942, pp. 265-70.) See also Edwin E. Dvvinger, Wiedersehen mit Sozvjetrussland (Jena : Diederichs, 1943), p. 70.

416

Problems and Practice

PI.

Ill

‘ Gestapo M üller’ , dated November 9, 1941 : The commandants of concentration camps [he wired] complain that from 5 to 10 per cent of the Soviet Russians slated for execution arrive in the camps dead or half dead.1 Even the prerogatives of assassination provoked jurisdictional disputes. At the same time, however, some'were seeking a moderation or change of policy. In the field, many individual officers ignored the ‘ commissar decrees’ . Others wrote frantic letters home appealing to the sense of honour of the German officer corps. Still others helped release prisoners who were not entitled to go free. It remained for the two organizations that had a legitimate stake in the fate of the prisoners to advocate a change of German policy. These were the Abwehr and the Rosenberg Ministry. Unlike Rosenberg, Admiral Canaris had not espoused the ‘ pro­ minority’ policy in dogmatic fashion; nor did his stand entail any fanatical anti-Russian edge. When the question of the treatment of prisoners arose, he sent one of his deputies, General Erwin Lahousen, to a conference with the chief of the AWA, General Reinecke (whom the Abwehr had disparagingly dubbed ‘ little Keitel’), and with ‘ Gestapo M üller’ . The instructions Canaris gave him were characteristic of his outlook, combining a peculiar realism with traces of humanism and a self-searching conscience. In addition to pointing to the illegality of the OKW directives under international law, Lahousen protested against prisoner abuse because it frustrated German propaganda within the Red Army and doomed to failure all efforts to induce Soviet troops to desert. Lahousen was over­ ruled, and the Keitel directives of September 8, embodying the arguments of Reinecke and Müller, were distributed.2 Then Canaris personally joined the fray. In a strongly worded summary addressed to Keitel, he added to the points already made by Lahousen that it was impossible to make political use of any prisoner after his camp experience, and that instead of capitalizing on the existing tensions in the Soviet Union, such an abusive policy merely offered to the Soviet leadership ample opportunity to mobilize their people ••

_

1 Lt.-G en. Kurt von Österreich, affidavit, T M W C , vii, 363-4 (it should be noted, however, that this affidavit was procured by the Soviet prosecution without independent corroboration) ; Deutschl to Himmler, January 24, 1942, Document N O -420 * ; General Reinecke, affidavit, Document N O -19 6 8 * ; Müller, ‘ Schnell­ brief : Transport der zur Exekution bestimmten sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen in die Konzentrationslager’ , November 9, 1941, Document 116 5 -P S , T M W C , vii, 42. See also Eugen Kogon, Der S S -S ta a t (Frankfurt : Frankfurter Hefte, 1946), pp. 185-90, 3 16 -17 . 2 See above, p. 3 1.

CH. X I X

Prisoners of War

417

against Germany. He added that the Abwehr was in fundamental disagreement with the directives of September 8. But this and similar protests were of no avail.1 The Rosenberg staff, for its part, advocated a policy of selective treatment. Some of its officials set about zealously to improve the fate, first and foremost, of the non-Russian captives and deployed considerable determination and ingenuity for this purpose. Some of this was accomplished under the pretext of transferring certain prisoners to propaganda or intelligence work. The Ostministerium was instrumental in creating special commissions which toured the camps and managed to alleviate the sufferings of at least certain groups of prisoners.2 In the inevitable polarization of positions, Rosenberg, espousing the concept of ‘ political warfare’ against the nihilist bullies of the Bormann and Koch variety, was forced to side with the ‘ humanitarian’ faction against those responsible for German policy toward the prisoners — in this case, the OKW. After the long winter of 1941-2, which saw the death of hundreds of thousands of prisoners, Rosenberg, aroused by his aides, wrote an irate letter to Field-Marshal Keitel, summarizing the tragic results of German conduct. For Rosenberg the letter represented an unusual burst of determined protest. The primary demand of the hour, he concluded after enumerating past abuses, was that . . . the treatment of prisoners of war must correspond to the laws of humaneness. . . . One can say without exaggeration that the errors in the treatment of prisoners of war are to a large extent responsible for the stiffened resistance of the Red Army and thereby also for the deaths of thousands of German soldiers.1 But Keitel stood pat. If Reinecke now issued a new directive calling for milder treatment, this revision of tactics was nowise to be credited to moral or political considerations. In his own words, it was ‘ due to the need for Soviet prisoners of war as labourers’ .4 A prisoner could be a labourer without ceasing to be an Untermensch. This attitude was also shared by Bormann’s Party chancellery, and 1 Lahousen, testimony, T M W C , ii, 453-60, and affidavit, Document N O 2894* ; Am t Ausland/Abwehr, ‘ Vortragsnotiz*, September 15, 19 4 1, Document 338 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 317 -2 0 ; Karl-Heinz Abshagen, Canarisy Patriot und Weltbürger (Stuttgart : Union Deutscher Verlag, 1949), pp. 303-7. Another vain protest was submitted by an Abwehr official executed in 1944 for participation in the plot against Hitler, Count Helmuth James von Moltke, one of the most stalwart anti-Nazis active in Germany. 2 Interviews G -6, G -12 . See also below, p. 422, n. 1. 3 Rosenberg to Keitel, February 28, 1942, Document 0 8 1-P S, T M W C , xxv, 156 -6 1. 4 Cited in Paul W . Blackstock, ‘ German Covert Political Warfare Against the U .S.S.R .*, M S * (Washington, 1954), ch. v, p. 9.

4l8

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

Erich Koch continued to issue directives aimed at punishing, by death if necessary, all civilians who helped fugitive prisoners.1 In quasi-isolation, the SS meanwhile proceeded with its work of ‘ solving’ the racial problem. It was axiomatic that Jewish prisoners of war as well as ‘ intellectuals’ and ‘ commissars’ had to be ex­ terminated. For about six months, non-Slavic, and especially Moslem, captives from the U .S.S.R . were subjected to the same ruthless policy — partly because of the Untermensch concept which placed the ‘ Asiatic’ at the bottom of the racial scale,2 and partly because of a mistake. It was not unusual for SS officers to label Jews for extermination on the basis of circumcision alone ; of course, non-Jews too — notably Moslems — were frequently circumcised. In addition, ‘ Jew s’ were often determined ‘ intuitively’ according to the screening officer’s estimate of facial features. As a result, literally tens of thousands of prisoners of war of non-Je wish origin were liquidated in the summer and fall of 19 4 1.3 Again the Abwehr and Ostministerium protested. Lahousen, as Canaris’ representative, objected specifically to one incident in which several hundred Crimean Tatars were killed as ‘ Jew s’. And Rosenberg, true to his political concepts, noted in his strong protest to Keitel that in various camps ‘ Asiatics ’ were shot, although it is precisely the residents of the ‘ Asian’ areas, Transcaucasia and Turkestan, who are most sharply against Russian oppression and the pro-Bolshevik segments of the Soviet population. . . .4 And almost three years later, when a leading Caucasian collaborator submitted a report to the German authorities, outlining the causes of setbacks at the Eastern front, he too stressed the instances where Moslems from the Caucasus, who in accordance with their religion are circumcised, were summarily shot by the hundreds as Jews. It even happened that it sufficed for a man to have black hair and black eyes in order to be considered a Jew and shot.5 As for saving the Jewish prisoners, the question was not even raised. 1 R K U , Zentralblatt, i (1942), 8, 241. 2 The O K W /A W A order of June 16, 19 4 1, warned particularly against ‘ treachery’ of Asiatic prisoners. Subsequent decrees sought to keep ‘ M ongols’ and ‘ Asiatic’ captives out of the Reich. (Documents N O K W -5 4 9 * ; 119 9 -P S and 1206-PS, T M W C , xxvii, 63-6.) 3 On the cruel and often vulgar procedures, see also Document 0 8 2-P S * ; interviews H -89, H -10 6, H -12 2 , H -37 5, H -391 ; and Veli Kayum, interrogation, February 27, 19 4 7 *, N A . 4 Document 1^ 0 *28 9 4 * ; Document 0 8 1-P S , T M W C , xxv, 158. 5 Mikhail Kedia, ‘ Denkschrift’ , June 6, 1944*.

CH. X I X

Prisoners of War

419

Pawns of Policy After the hardships of the first winter, some slight improvement did take place in the treatment of prisoners.1 The number of new captives was considerably smaller, and from the early groups many had died — thus reducing the problems of billets and rations. There had been more time to organize new camps. Above all, the growing German need for labour began to require the preservation of the captives. Yet the impact of the first year remained indelible. The number of attempted escapes was still high — and in large measure attributable to the treatment meted out. Indeed, the fate of the prisoners was a principal cause for bitter resentment against the invaders, even among the civilian population on occupied territory.12 Nazi treatment of the prisoners provided the Soviet Government with an effective propaganda theme. As early as November 1941, Foreign Commissar Molotov released a diplomatic note to Allied and neutral powers, protesting against deliberate and wholesale German extermination of prisoners and citing specific instances of abuse.3 Berlin barricaded itself behind the legalistic rationale that the Soviet Government had never ratified the Geneva covenant of 1929 on the treatment of prisoners of war, and since international conventions were valid only if reciprocal, the Reich was therefore free to treat and employ the prisoners as it saw fit.4 As the Economic Staff, among others, was instructed in mid-September : In contrast to the feeding of other [non-Soviet] captives, we are not bound by any international obligations to feed Bolshevik prisoners. 1 For regulations governing the treatment of prisoners of war, see the collection, in N S D A P , Partei-Kanzlei, Verfügungen, Anordnungen, Bekanntgaben (Munich, 1943), ii, 65-6 ; iii, 524-606 ; and Hans Küppers and Rudolf Bannier, Einsatzbedingungen der Ostarbeiter (Berlin : Reichsarbeitsblatt, 1943), pp. 126-97. 2 In answering a request to ‘ list all mistakes which the Germans committed* in Russia, a group of about 900 Displaced Persons who had lived under the German occupation mentioned most frequently the prisoners of war as the group most negatively affected by German policy : Prisoners of war Jews Civilians National groups Peasants Other groups

338 158 100 96 44 38

(Project on the Soviet Social System, Russian Research Center, Harvard Uni­ versity, ‘ Wartime Occupation Code B ook*', W O 19.) 3 Molotov, Noty narodnogo komissara inostrannykh del V. M . Molotova (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1942). 4 See even the pre-invasion directive of June 16, 19 4 1, Document N O K W 54 9 # ; also Rosenberg, testimony, T M W C , xi, 501.

420

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

Their rations must therefore be determined solely on the basis of their labour performance for us.1 The official Soviet position, that any soldier who fell into enemy hands was ipso facto a traitor and deserved no protection from his government, made its contribution to the mistreatment of prisoners in the Reich. This was the line taken by Moscow when the Inter­ national Red Cross made overtures during the war with the aim of reaching an understanding with the Axis powers regarding captives. In spite of continuous efforts to obtain permission to inspect PW camps in the U .S.S.R . or to exchange lists of captured troops or even to send material aid to prisoners held in the Soviet Union, the Soviet reply was invariably in the negative.12 If Moscow was adamant, so was the Führer. He, too, refused to exchange lists of prisoners, arguing that such an agreement would diminish the fear German soldiers had of falling into Soviet captivity and would compel the Reich tacitly to admit the huge casualties among its Soviet prisoners.3 Hitler’s obsession with ‘ Eastern inferiority’ made him oblivious to the practical effects of his policy. Symptomatic of the confusion of values was the crisis which arose in the summer of 1942 over the branding of prisoners. Dis­ turbed by the increasing number of escapes effected by the Soviet prisoners, Hitler demanded that Keitel devise a means for the easy identification of fugitive captives. Although clearly aware of the illegality of such a move, Keitel proceeded to draft the order, which provided : (1) Soviet prisoners of war are to be branded with a special and durable mark. (2) The brand is to consist of an acute angle of about 450 with a onecentimetre length of side, pointing downwards on the left buttock, at about a hand’s width from the rectum. . . S 1 Nagel, ‘ Wirtschaftsaufzeichnungen’, September 16, 19 41, Document 003E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 108. 2 The Soviet government intimated in the fall of 1943 that it might let Count Bemadotte, as representative of the International Red Cross, visit Soviet prisoner camps if in return he obtained Swedish consent to the forcible repatriation of Baltic ömigräs to the U .S .S .R . (Count Folke Bemadotte, Instead of Arms [Stockholm : Bonniers, 1948], pp. 40-57.) For a detailed report of Red Cross endeavours in this field, see International Committee of the Red Cross, Report . . . on its activities during the Second World War (Geneva : Red Cross, 1948), i,

404 - 36 . 3 Ritter to O K W , January 9, 1942, Document N G -3 8 8 5 * . 4 O K W /A W A , K gf.-Abt., 4Kennzeichnung der sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen durch ein Merkmal’ , July 20, 1942, Document 34 3 -U .S .S .R ., T M W C , xxxix, 489-90,

CH. X I X

Prisoners of War

421

It was claimed at the Nuremberg Trials, and no evidence to the contrary was adduced, that the decree was not applied and that it was cancelled about a week after it was issued.1 Indeed, there is no evidence that the Army tried to enforce i t : the objections were too widespread. Yet the decree was distributed to the regional labour offices and the police on occupied soil. It was a peculiar twilight in which the Army operated : the High Command had the courage neither to enforce the directives nor to inform the other agencies of their cancellation. When the Red Army captured a copy of the order at Stalino, Moscow gave it considerable publicity — much to the annoyance of the Goebbels Ministry. The latter, in preparing a rebuttal, was much amazed to learn that such a decree had indeed been issued — and was at a loss to reply.2

Rosenberg’s protest to Keitel had, in line with its author’s outlook, concentrated on the long-range effects of prisoner abuse : Germany [the Ostminister had written] conducts the struggle against the Soviet Union within an ideological framework. . . . The prisoners of war must feel that National Socialism is even now able and willing to provide them with a better tomorrow. They must, later on, return from Germany with a feeling of admiration and respect . . . and thus become propagandists for the cause of Germany and National Socialism. ‘ To date’, he added in an unwitting understatement, ‘ this goal has not been attained.’ At the same time, Rosenberg was aware that for the other agencies involved, such long-range goals were of little relevance. It was in recognition of the more immediate crisis that he approved the formation of a score of ‘ prisoner of war commissions ’ which, with the participation of other ministries, toured the camps selecting the best-qualified 5 to 10 per cent (especially non-Russians) for political, police, intelligence, and propaganda tasks. At the same time, the commissions pressed for a general improvement in the living conditions of the captives. Similar efforts were made on be­ half of Russian prisoners, when it became apparent that things were not going according to Nazi plans and that the mass of prisoners, regardless 1 Ribbentrop, with whose office a check was made, later claimed to have objected, but this had not prevented the order from being issued. Keitel, testi­ mony, T M W C , x, 5 6 3 -4 ; Ribbentrop, testimony, T M W C , x, 3 1 8 -1 9 ; Rotraud Römer, affidavit, Document Keitel-17, T M W C , xl, 398-9. 2 A facsimile of the order (Heinrich von Einsiedel, I Joined the Russians [New Haven : Yale University Press, 1953], foil. p. 94) includes a letter of transmittal from the commander of the uniformed police in the Ukraine, dated September 4, 1942. See also Document 1 19 1 - P S ; and [Taubert,] ‘ Die deutsche Ostpolitik', M S #, p. 10,

422

Problems and Practice

FT. Ill

of nationality, presented an untapped source of manpower.1 Rosenberg had also become sensitive to the steady decline in the number of active deserters from the Red Army. He, along with others, demanded of Keitel that a distinction be made between the treatment of the mass of captured prisoners and that of the smaller number of deserters. Millions of leaflets had been dropped behind enemy lines urging Soviet troops to desert. All too often they had been little more than vulgar visions of ‘ wine, women, and song’, empty promises of cigarettes and food, and bigoted appeals to escape the ‘ Jewish commissars’ . A major reason, however, why the number of deserters had decreased, Rosenberg insisted with at least some justice, had been that the deserter has been thrashed and exposed to death from starvation like the many [other] prisoners. An obvious consequence of this politically and militarily unwise treatment has been not only the weakening of the will to desert but a truly deadly fear of falling into German captivity.12 In conclusion, he appealed to the High Command to sponsor a privileged treatment of active deserters. The same idea was backed by the Abwehr and the Army. According to Marshal Messe, Italian commander-in-chief at the Eastern front, an OKH memo­ randum of September i, 1942, specifically assailed the fact that deserters were subjected to the same difficult conditions as Soviet prisoners.3 And a memorandum by a ‘ high-ranking Soviet officer’ , who had been released for propaganda work on the German side, explained that the number of deserters had dropped sharply because most of the prisoners have been disappointed . . . 18-20 days without food ; only cursing and beating ; shootings without reason, often only because the prisoner cannot understand what the Germans want from him. . . . Information about the hopeless existence in the German prisoner-of-war camps spreads among the [Soviet civilian] population, too.4 1 Document o 8 2-P S * ; and interview G -6. The visit of the Turkestani emigre leaders to the Suwalki camp began a chain reaction of protests about conditions in the camps. See Mustaffa Chokaev, ‘ Vospominaniia’, Tiirkeli (Munich), 19 5 1, no. 4, pp. 17-26 ; and above, p. 4 17. For the recollections of a Russian participant on a ‘ prisoner of war commission', see Konstantin Kromiadi, ‘ Sovetskie voennoplennye v Germanii v 1941 godu', N ovyi Zhurnal (New York), xxxii (1953)» 193-202. 2 Document 0 8 1-P S , T M W C , xxv, 15 7 -6 1. 3 Giovanni Messe, Der Krieg im Osten (Zürich : Thom as-Verlag,i948), pp. 82-3. 4 Document Occ E ( R A ) - i #, Y IV O . In December 1942 a new set of instruc­ tions called for ‘ unobjectionable' treatment of captives since they were ‘ valuable labour'. ‘ T h e extraordinary need for labour requires that the prisoners be kept capable of and willing to work in good health.’ (O KH /GenStdH /Gen.Q u., A bt.K r.-Verw ., Merkblatt über Behandlung der Kriegsgefangenen, December 1, 1942, H 14 /13, C R S.)

CH. X I X

Prisoners of War

423

The OKW was unreceptive, but the interested agencies continued to press their efforts.1 Only after Stalingrad, in April 1943, was a policy in favour of deserters adopted. As part of an ambitious new propaganda offensive, known under the code-name of Silberstreif, a special decree was issued providing for the segregation of deserters from other prisoners and for their being treated ‘ especially decently’ . But the ‘ silver lining’ failed to dispel the clouds. The operation was without lasting effect.2 Statistics of Tragedy The fate of the prisoners was symptomatic of the general evolution in German Ostpolitik. As the German position in the East deterio­ rated, the prisoners were ‘ accepted’ — not as allies but as useful tools for war production, combat, and propaganda. The wholesale draft of forced labour after the spring of 1942 brought in its wake a certain improvement in the status of the prisoners, who had to be fed well enough to get adequate performance out of them. This improvement must be assessed as a tactical sacrifice of dogma for the sake of short-range benefits to the warring Reich. As Bräutigam pointed out, the improvement [in the living conditions of the prisoners] cannot be attributed to political insight but to the sudden realization that our labour market urgently needs replacements. We now experience the grotesque picture that after the tremendous starvation of prisoners of war, millions of labourers must hurriedly be recruited.3 Here was the striking paradox: German policy, active and passive, had brought about the death of those very masses whom the Reich now needed so badly. Gauleiter Sauckel’s new task was to round up all usable labour, and it was natural that ‘ one must im­ mediately fall back on the available prisoners of war’, even though, as he noted, their poor physical condition prevented them from providing the bulk of the new army of Ostarbeiter needed for 1 ‘ It is no longer a secret’ , wrote Bräutigam to Rosenberg, ‘ to either friend or foe that hundreds of thousands [of prisoners] literally starved or froze to death in our camps. It is obvious that nothing is as well suited to strengthen the power of resistance of the Red Arm y as the realization that German captivity is tantamount to slow and painful death.’ (Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung’ , October 25, 1942, Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 338.) See also Jürgen Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen (Stuttgart : Steingrüben Verlag, 1952), pp. 47-52, 7 1-2 . 2 Hitler approved of the move. (See ‘ Besprechung des Führers’, June 8, 1943, Journal of Modern History [Chicago], xxiii, no. 1 [March 19 51], 62-3.) See also John H. Buchsbaum, ‘ German Psychological Warfare on the Russian Front, 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 5 ’, M S * , O C M H , 1953 ; Blackstock, op. cit. ; and below, pp. 570 - 1. 3 Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 338.

424

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

German war production.1 Rosenberg noted that, ‘ of the 3-6 million prisoners of war, only a few hundred thousand are still fully capable of working’ .12 Nevertheless, by July 1942, over 200,000 Soviet prisoners, especially skilled labourers, had been selected for labour in the Reich by special agents who toured the PW camps* with the approval of the AWA. By the spring of 1943 their number had jumped to 368.000 (with about 100,000 being used in agriculture and about 90.000 in various branches of the armament industry). It reached its peak of 750,000 in mid-1944.3 In December 1944 the number of Soviet prisoners working in German still exceeded 630,000.4 The limited-purpose campaign of feeding prisoners more adequately so as to obtain better labour performance had paid off. It would be erroneous to conclude that the labour mobilization programme spelled the end of the oppressive policy towards the prisoners. Bormann’s Party Chancellery, the AWA, and the SS all continued to insist on harsh treatment. The AWA, in a circular distributed by Bormann, reported that Army and Party agencies complained repeatedly about insufficient provisions for the punish­ ment of captives. While warning against unjustified abuse, the directive authorised the use of arms, if necessary, to compel obedience.5 Some months later, Bormann again warned against clemency and reiterated that the prisoners are ‘ our enemies’ and must be treated accordingly. Upon his insistence, the AWA in October 1943 issued a new directive which condemned ‘ genteel’ treatment of prisoners as out of step with the demands of total war. It noted that there will be no understanding [among the German population] of too mild a treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, at a time when we know what 1 Sauckel, address, April 14, 1942, Document 3 18 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 312. On the forced labour programme, see Chapter X X below. 2 Document 0 8 1-P S, T M W C , xxv, 15 7 -6 1. Other German statistics indicate that seven months after the invasion, 3*9 million soldiers had been taken prisoner ; by February 1942, only i - i million were left as a potential labour supply. (O K W / W iRü Amt, ‘ Vortrag von Min. Dir. Dr. M ansfeld’, February 20, 1942, Document 12 0 1-P S * ; and T M W C , xi, 187.) 3 Sauckel, ‘ Einsatz fremdländischer Arbeitskräfte in Deutschland’, July 27, 1942, Document 1296-P S, T M W C , xxvii, 116 ; ‘ 36. Besprechung der Zentralen Planung’, April 22, 1943, Document 124-R , T M W C , xxxviii, 344-5 ; Keitel, ‘ Kräfte für Kohlenbergbau’ , July 8, 1943, Document 744-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 285. 4 As compared with 1*9 million Soviet civilian workers in the Reich and a total of over 6*6 million foreigners of all nationalities. (See also Edward L. Deuss, affidavit, Document 2520-P S, T M W C , xxx, 588.) 5 O K W /A W A , K gf.-Abt., ‘ Notwehrrecht gegenüber Kriegsgefangenen’ , January 29, 1943, and Bormann, letter of transmittal, February 12, 1943, Document 6 56 -PS, T M W C , xxvi, 204-6.

CH. XI X

Prisoners of War

425

terrible sufferings German soldiers are exposed to when they fall into Soviet hands. . . . Weaklings who express themselves to the effect that in the light of the present situation one must secure ‘ friends’ among the prisoners of war, are defeatists and are to be tried by court for subversion of the armed forces.1 Himmler expressed himself in a similar vein in his famous Posen speech. Speaking of ‘ beasts’ and ‘ slaves’ , he remarked: ‘ We have prisoners in Germany. They are not dangerous, so long as we hit hard at the slightest hint [of violation].’ 2 Use them if they are compliant slaves; abuse them at will if they balk — this was still the formula. In law and in fact, the status of the prisoners remained virtually the same. As late as 1944, new decrees perpetuated the terms of inequality. Where non-Soviet PWs received 70 pfennigs for a day’s work, Soviet prisoners received only 35 ; when special bonuses or deductions were provided for, invariably the Soviet captives’ share was 50 per cent of the non-Soviet prisoners’.3 To the very end, maltreatment continued; instances of cruel atrocities were reported as late as the winter of 1944-5.4 I*1 t^ie final months of the war, as the Red Army approached the large Stalags, the prisoners were forced to march westwards under wretched conditions, and once again thousands perished. But the advance from both East and West was rapid enough to free the majority of those who still re­ mained in German hands. As for those overtaken by the Soviets or repatriated by the Western Allies, a new trial awaited them. The prisoner-of-war issue shows that the policy pursued by the German military was not necessarily or uniformly more realistic or 1 O K W /A W A , K gf.-Abt., ‘ Behandlung der Kriegsgefangenen*, October 26, 1943, Document 228-P S, T M W C , xxv, 306-9. 2 Himmler, speech, October 4, 1943, Document 19 19 -P S , T M W C , xxix, 133. See also above, p. 175. 1 O K W /A W A , K gf.-Abt., ‘ Kriegsgefangenenarbeit*, March 1, 1944, Docu­ ment 4 2 7 -U .S .S .R ., T M W C , xxxix, 5 1 5 -1 6 . After the Allied invasion of N or­ mandy, a new tightening of the reins took place, and additional directives facilitated the ‘ transfer* of prisoners to the Gestapo and S S . Prisoners were to be shot without warning if they ‘ touched* the wire surrounding their camps or left their quarters in violation of orders. While non-Soviet prisoners suspected of attempting to escape were to be warned, ‘ fleeing Soviet prisoners of war are to be shot im­ mediately without warning*. (Wehrkreiskommando V I [Directives], June 1 and July 27, 1944, Document 15 14 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 261-9.) 4 For instance, Document N O - 2 3 3 1 #, and Veli Kayum, interrogation, February 27, 19 47*, N A . See also Georgii B., ‘ Life in a German Stalag\ M S * (New York : Research Program on the U .S .S .R .) ; and Stanisfaw Ploski, ‘ Zbrodne niemieckie w obozach jencöw sowieckich w Polsce’ , GJowna komisja badah zbrodni niemickich w Polsce, Biuletyn (Poznan), i (1946), 30 5-14. See also ‘ Zaglada jencöw radzieckich w obozach na ziemiach polskich*, ibid, v (1949), 123-70.

426

Problems and Practice

PT. Il l

more humane than that of other German organs. During the early months of the occupation, Army treatment of Soviet captives was atrocious. There is no doubt that the Army had its own problems. Supply shortages for its own men made it difficult to allot provisions for the prisoners, and the staggering number of captives would have made housing and feeding a major undertaking even under ideal conditions. None the less, much of the neglect and abuse was avoidable. Some Army elements recognized at an early date the foolhardiness — and the immorality — of the policy that was being pursued so recklessly. Yet initially their dissenting voice was lost in the din of Nazi contempt for the Untermensch. German tactics changed only when expediency dictated a softpedalling of original attitudes. In 1942 and 1943 the plight of the captives was relieved sufficiently for the Reich to draw much-needed labour from their ranks. Yet it was a measure of both the funda­ mental Nazi outlook and the struggle for power that after July 20, 1944, the SS took charge of all prisoner-of-war affairs, with Gottlob Berger assuming command in lieu of the Wehrmacht’s AW A.1 For the Reich, the prisoners remained to the end a category inferior and apart. For the Soviet Government, they were traitors who must be punished for falling into enemy hands. For the captives themselves, caught between hammer and anvil, it was an indescribable ordeal. Those who survived had to choose between surrendering morally and becoming tools of their Nazi masters, attempting to escape at the risk of their lives, or neutrally trying to vegetate with dignity as mistreated captives. As the accompanying table shows, more than 5 million Soviet soldiers fell into German hands in the course of the war. Of these, less than one million were released, either to return home as civilians, or to serve with col­ laborator units established by the German armed forces.2 A total of 2 million men are known to have died in captivity, and another million are not accounted fo r : most of them either died, escaped, or were exterminated by the SD. As the Allied armies closed in on the German heartland, barely one million survived in the camps. 1 In equally typical fashion, Bormann sought to neutralize this S S accretion of power by having Hitler grant him, as representative of the Party machine, distinct authority to ‘ participate * in the administration of prisoner-of-war affairs. (Bor­ mann, ‘ Bekanntgabe’ , September 13, 1944, and ‘ Rundschreiben’, September 30, 1944, Documents 058-P S and 232-P S , T M W C , xxv, 1 1 4 - 1 5 , 3 1 0 -11 .) 2 The total number of military collaborators may well have exceeded this figure, however, since it included a good many who never passed through PW camp registration.

C H. X I X

Prisoners of War

4*1

ANNEX T H E F A T E O F S O V I E T P R IS O N E R S O F W A R (as of M ay i, 1944) 1 In O K H custody In O K W custody (In occupied (In Germany U .S .S .R . and Poland) territory)

Total number captured Of these, transferred from OKH to OKW area Remaining under OKH control Recorded deaths in PW camps and compounds Released to civilian or military status Escapes Exterminations J Not accounted for Deaths and disappearance in transit Surviving as prisoners of war [of these, working]

Total

5,160,0002 3,no,ooo 2,050,000 845,000

1,136,000

535.000

283.000 67,000 473.000 T / J» 273,000

495 >00°

; |

175,000 j [151,000] j

878,000 [724,000]

1,981,0002 818,000 1

|

8 r,308,000

1,053,000 [875,000]

1 Based on O K W /A W A , 4Nachweisungen des Verbleibs der sowjetischen K r.Gef. nach dem Stand vom 1.5 .19 4 4 ’ .* The date of M ay 1944 is useful because it summarizes the situation as of the eve of the Soviet offensive and the Allied landing in France, both of which freed Soviet prisoners. In addition to the gradual attrition of the prisoner-of-war labour force, the remaining year of the war (M ay 1944 to April 1945) saw further releases to military collaborator units, few new captives, and some deaths. - This figure is patently incomplete and covers only prisoners ‘ accounted for*. Other more authoritative but still incomplete German hies reveal the number of captured Soviet prisoners of war to have totalled 5,754,000, with a (rounded) yearly breakdown as follows : 1941 : 3 ,355 ,ooo 1942 : 1,653,000 565,000 1943 : 147,000 1944 : 34,000 1945 : 5,754,000

C H A P T E R XX

OSTARBEITER We are engaged in a life and death struggle. . . . Therein lies the justification for me, as a National Socialist, to impose the duty to work upon members of other peoples.— S a u c k e l , speech, February 1943

Recruitment and Conscription T h e forcible employment of several million Soviet citizens in war­ time Germany as Ostarbeiter, or ‘ Eastern workers’, had not been part of the pre-invasion planning. The departure from original blueprints was dictated purely by the exigencies of war, and it developed only as manpower shortages became acute. Eastern man­ power was cheap and abundant. If it was needed, Hitler decided, it was far safer to use it as forced labour than as troops on the German side. We shall never build up a Russian army [he proclaimed]: that is a first-rate phantom. Before we do that, it is much simpler for me to get the Russians to Germany as labourers. . . . If I get Russian workers, I am content, for then I can release Germans [for military service].1 In embryonic form, the labour programme in the East began soon after the invasion, when certain categories of specialists were encouraged to enlist voluntarily for work and training in the Reich. Coming at a time when German victory seemed certain and when faith in German promises had not yet been undermined, this early programme met with some success.2 Gradually the notion of large-scale Russeneinsatz — ‘ allocation ’ of Russians — gained support, particularly in the leading circles of the Four-Year Plan and the branches of private business connected with it. In September 1941 the Labour Ministry asked the FourYear Plan’s approval for the hiring of Russian miners for the German coal and ore mining industry, primarify of ‘ reliable’ elements such as Ukrainians or former citizens of the Baltic States.3 As the man­ power shortage grew, so did the ‘ appetite’. In November Goring 1 ‘ Besprechung des Führers*, June* 6, 1943, Journal of Modern History (Chicago), xxiii, no. 1 (March 1951), 64. 2 ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 259-60 ; interviews G -2, G -3. 3 Reichsarbeitsministerium [Minutes of the Meeting of September 24, 1941], September 26, 19 4 1, Document N I-460, N M T , xiii, 964-7.

428

CH. XX

Ostarbeiter

429

issued directives that clearly foreshadowed ‘ the extensive utilization of Russian manpower in the interests of the Reich’ .1 At the peak of the winter crisis, in January 1942, an ambitious recruitment drive was therefore instituted, and on February 24 the first order usher­ ing in the full-scale Ostarbeiter programme was promulgated : the occupied East was to supply 380,000 labourers for German agri­ culture and 247,000 for German industry. Now that the war was expected to drag on, ‘ the demands of the Reich [were to] have priority over local manpower needs’ .2 Soon it became apparent that even more recruits would be needed, and that the operation could not be successfully carried out without special machinery to implement it. The result was the establish­ ment on March 21, 1942, of the office of Plenipotentiary General for Labour Allocation [Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz, or GBA], as a subsidiary of the Four-Year Plan. Its function was to secure ‘ all available manpower including foreigners and prisoners of w ar’ to supplement German labour and release Germans for military service.3 Fritz Sauckel, the head of the GBA , was not, strictly speaking, a first-string Nazi leader. An early convert to Nazism, he had become Gauleiter of Thuringia in 1927. Tough and unimaginative, he had no particular qualities to recommend him. Goebbels rather correctly labelled him ‘ one of the dullest of the dull’ .4 Considering their numerous later clashes, it was ironical that Rosenberg should have suggested Sauckel for the post which Koch got, as commissar of the Ukraine. Sauckel’s early failure to obtain a prominent position in 1 [Vierjahresplan,] ‘ Besprechung vom 7 .1 1 .1 9 4 1 über den Einsatz von Sow ­ jetrussen’, Document 119 3 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 56-9 ; ‘ Materialsammlung*, p. 259 (entry for December 4, 1941) ; Reichsgesetzblatt (Berlin), 1942, i, 4 1. The numerous decrees pertaining to the recruitment and treatment of Ostar­ beiter appeared in the government gazettes on law and labour. T he best collections of decrees and systematic discussions published in war-time Germany, for use of government agencies and private ‘ employers’ , are N S D A P , Partei-Kanzlei, Verfügungeriy Anordnungen, Bekanntmachungen (Munich, 1943), i i ; G B A , Handbuch fü r die Dienststellen des Generalbevollmächtigten fü r den Arbeitseinatz (Berlin, 1944), i ; J. Oermann, Die arbeitsrechtliche und die steuerrechtliche Behandlung der Ostar­ beiter (Berlin, 1944) ; Hans Küppers and Rudolf Bannier, Einsatzbedingungen der Ostarbeiter (Berlin : Reichsarbeitsblatt, 1943, 2nd ed.). 2 W iStab Ost, Chefgruppe Arbeit, ‘ Lenkung des Arbeitseinsatzes*, January 26, 1942, Document 3 8 1-U .S .S .R ., T M W C , xxxix, 4 9 1-2 ; RM fdbO . to R K O and R K U , March 6, 1942, Document 580-P S, T M W C , xxiv, 16 1-5 . 3 [Hitler,] ‘ Erlass des Führers’ , March 2 1, 1942, and Göring, ‘ Anordnung zur Durchführung des Erlasses des Führers’ , March 27, 1942, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1942, i, 179-80 (also Document 1666-P S, T M W C , xxvii, 432-3). See also T M W C , xiv, 6 17 ; and Sauckel, ‘ Anordnung N r. 4 ’ , M ay 7, 1942, Document 3 3 5 3 -P S , T M W C , xxxii, 20 2-13. 4 See The Goebbels Diaries (Garden City : Doubleday, 1948), pp. 150, 325 ; and T M W C , xiv, 602 ff.

G.R.R.— 2 F

43°

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

the East, however, was no indication of Hitler’s disfavour. After his appointment as G B A chief (with the Fiihrer’s approval), he became a junior partner on the extremist team, close to Bormann and Goring, but not quite up to their level.1 Even though the G B A was established to centralize the procure­ ment, transportation, allocation, and exploitation of foreign labour, administrative chaos promptly ensued. The number of organiza­ tions and regulations involved in the Ostarbeiter programme multi­ plied steadily.12 Economic, administrative, military, and private interests intersected and clashed continuously. Yet, initially no differences arose over the principle of using foreign labour, by force if necessary. No protests were registered on grounds of either morals or expediency. The abominable treatment of the first, and largely voluntary, labour shipments rapidly became known in the occupied areas and contributed to the spread of anti-German sentiment. Presumably on the basis of German records, it is asserted that of the first labour quotas set for the Ukraine, 80 per cent were filled by volunteers but ‘ they were packed into freight cars without food or sanitary facilities and shipped off to Germany. . . . When news of this got back to the Ukraine, volunteering for the labour force ceased and ablebodied men and women took to the woods.’ 3 By the summer of 1942 no more volunteers could be found. If there were no volunteers, labour had to be seized by force. One of the most striking features of the entire programme was the carefree way in which all human and political implications were ignored. The Ostarbeiter programme pursued no long-range goals 1 See [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk*, July 16, 1941, Document 2 2 1 -L , T M W C , xxxviii, 90-1 ; Rosenberg, Portrait, p. 303. The appointment was evidently made at Speer’s suggestion. (T M W C , xiv, 619, and xxxii, 198.) 2 See Documents 0 16-P S , T M W C , xxv, 71 ; 1739 -P S , xxviii, 584 ; 19 13 -P S , xxix, 95. A t the Nuremberg trials Sauckel testified that what he was fighting for from the very beginning was ‘ to eliminate and combat the intricate mass of offices. . . .’ (T M W C , xv, 10 -11.) If so, the results were meagre at best. In addition to the Ostarbeiter programme, there of course existed the com­ pulsory labour service in the occupied territories themselves, established in December 1941 by a Rosenberg decree (see above, p. 83) and extended on August 27 and November 16, 1942. During the Stalingrad crisis, all inhabitants from 14 to 65 years of age in the military government areas were liable to 54 work-hours a week. T he obligation was formalized for the entire occupied area by a decree of March 29, 1943, providing for compulsory labour ‘ for tasks of total war conduct’ for all males between 15 and 65, and all females between 15 and 45 years of age. (RM fdbO ., Verordnungsblatt, i [1942], 5, 7 2 \ ü [1943], 7 1. See also Documents 1739 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 599 ; 19 75-P S , xxix, 186-9 ; 30 12-P S , xxxi, 4 8 1-5 ; 3352 -P S , xxxii, 2 1 5 - 1 7 ; ‘ Materialsammlung’ , pp. 231 ff.) 3 Wallace Carroll, ‘ It Takes a Russian T o Beat a Russian’ , Life (Chicago), December 19, 1,49, p. 82.

CH. XX

Ostarbeiter

431

of reshaping the E a st; its sole raison d'etre was expediency. With their sights fixed on exploiting the huge numbers of men and women which the Nazi war machine demanded, Sauckel’s representatives operated in a vacuum, oblivious to the effects of their conduct on the Ostarbeiter themselves, on their friends and kin, and on the Red Army. For over two years — from the spring of 1942 to the summer of 1944 — every means was used to procure the masses of men which the Nazi state needed. Except for the last year, the goals were substantially fulfilled. Of the 4-6 million men demanded by German industry and agriculture in 1942-3, 3*5 million were to come from abroad. Of these, nearly three million were to be supplied by the occupied East (excluding Soviet prisoners of war and forced labour from Galicia). In March 1942 there were some 50,000 Ostarbeiter in Germany. By summer, their number exceeded one million, and it continued to grow except for a period of major ‘ disappointment’ during the winter crisis of 1942-3. By mid-1943 the number of Ostarbeiter had reached about two million. To maintain this level through 1945, a considerable increment was required as replacements for casualties, illness, and escapes. In all, nearly 2'8 million civilians were shipped from the occupied U .S.S.R . to work in the Reich.1 lightening the Vise Sauckel promptly set about his new task. Four days after his appointment he sent Rosenberg a stern request to ‘ exhaust all possibilities’ for speedily shipping the maximum number of men to the Reich ; recruitment quotas were to be trebled immediately.12 His frequent references to the ‘ temporary’ nature of his assignment served only to underscore the narrow, functional conception he had of his job. The somewhat pompous but detailed ‘ Programme’ which he released on Hitler’s birthday contained two further points characteristic of his approach : he frankly admitted the necessity of applying force to fulfil the demands, and he smoothed the path for the exploitation of the Untermensch by elevating the German soldier to the status of an Übermensch. Here was the rationale of the giant 1 For details and sources, see below, pp. 4 51-2 . T he largest number of labour conscripts came from the Ukraine and the adjacent areas of Arm y Group South (later Arm y Groups ‘ A* and ‘ B*) ; this was due to the greater availability of manpower there, to the greater ‘ efficiency* of Koch*s minions, and to the fact that the partisan movement was weaker there than in the forest areas to the north. O f the total figure, some 80 per cent were reported to be rural residents ; the number of women conscripts slightly exceeded the number of men. 2 Sauckel to Rosenberg, March 3 1 , 1942, Document 38 2 -U .S .S .R ., T M W C , xxxix, 494-6. For details, see ‘ Materialsammlung*, pp. 26 1-5.

432

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

project for any who may have been bothered by their consciences.1 Sauckel spelled it out in early 1943 at a conference of Nazi Gauleiters : The unparalleled strain of this war compels us, in the name of the Führer, to mobilize many millions of foreigners for labour in the German total war economy and to make them work at maximum capacity. The goal of this employment is to secure weapons for the struggle that is being waged for the preservation of life and liberty. . . . Therein lies the justification for me, as a National Socialist, to impose the duty to work upon members of other peoples, in the spirit of the Führer’s decrees.12 In more concrete language, Sauckel restated the problem when he testified at Nuremberg three years later : S auckel : The Führer explained to me that if the race with the enemy

for new arms, new munitions, and new dispositions of forces was not won now, the Soviets would be as far as the Channel by the next winter. . . . D r . S ervatius : Did you have no scruples that this [programme] was against international law ? S auckel : The Führer spoke to me in such detail about this question and he explained the necessity so much as a matter of course that . . . there could be no misgivings on my part. None of the higher authorities, either military or civilian, expressed any misgivings.3 Indeed, the moral problem never appears to have bothered him. If, in spite of their ruthless character, the instructions issued by Sauckel’s office were less harsh than those of the SS and Koch, this was due to his categorical imperative of ‘ highest performance’. In his first ‘ programme’ of April 1942, Sauckel demanded the extrac­ tion of the ‘ greatest use’ for the German economy from the Ostar­ beiter without engaging in ‘ ahy false sentimentality’. A year later, he proudly repeated to his fellow-Gauleiters : You may rest assured that in my measures and directives I am guided by neither sentimentality nor romanticism, but solely by sober reflection and common sense.4 While preoccupation with results led him to keep living conditions to at least a tolerable minimum, the caveat of ‘ No compassion!’ needed, for the very same reason, to be balanced by another dictum : 1 Sauckel, ‘ Das Programm des Arbeitseinsatzes’, April 20, 1942, Document 0 16 -P S , T M W C , xxv, 56-66. See also Document 33 5 3 -P S , T M W C , xxxii, 202 ; and protocol, conference of April 15, 1942, Document 3 18 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 3 1 1 . 2 Sauckel, ‘ Ausführungen des Generalbevollmächtigten für den Arbeitsein­ satz’ , February 5-6, 1943, Document 1739 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 586-7. » IM T , T M W C , xiv, 622. Document 17 39 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 588.

CH. X X

Ostarbeiter

433

‘ No cruelty F The refrain recurs too frequently to be passed off as sheer hypocrisy, for it had a very practical basis : Even a machine [he declared] can perform only to the extent to which I give it fuel, oil, and service. How many more prerequisites must be considered with regard to a human being, even if he is of a primitive sort and race ! It was logical, therefore, to keep the Ostarbeiter alive and able to work — ‘ without depriving ourselves of anything’ .1 With the passage of time, his policy — like virtually all other facets of German Ostpolitik — was marked by an intensification of both blandishments and crude compulsion. Sauckel was immensely pleased when, after receiving his report on the fulfilment of the April quotas, Hitler in September 1942 entrusted him with even greater authority. He was permitted to take ‘ all measures’ in the Reich as well as in the occupied territories ‘ according to his own judgment’ to secure labour allocation; henceforth he could give all the directives he wished to military and civilian agencies.12 The G BA promptly took advantage of this new authority to adopt a more urgent tone in its dealings with the Ostministerium and the Wirt­ schaftsstab. When recruitment fell behind, Sauckel insisted that Hitler had authorized ‘ any measure of compulsion’ that would help carry out the task.3* The winter of 1942-3 placed additional burdens on the German transportation network, coupled as it was with the crises at Stalingrad and in North A frica; the most obvious sources of manpower had already been tapped, and more and more men were escaping from the German-held areas to the partisans. When the shipment of Ostarbeiter ground to a standstill (partly because the field armies consciously gave priority to their own critical problems of supplies and replacements), Sauckel had to admit that his new and higher 1 Document 0 16 -P S , T M W C , xxv, 69-70. Sauckel’s subsequent statements and directives reflected the same reasoning. See Document 3 18 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 3 1 2 - 1 3 ; and Document 17 39 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 588-9 ; Document Sauckel-16, T M W C , xli, 218 -20 ; Küppers, op. cit. 58-63. Though Sauckel was, by his own admission, ruthless, he was less blinded by fanaticism than Koch. However false the sentiments, Koch would never have declared with pride, as Sauckel did at the Nuremberg trials, that ‘ I considered it as my noblest job to care for all workers toiling for Germany, no matter whether they were Germans or foreigners — for their health, just treatment, and p ay’. (Sauckel, interrogation, Document 3 7 2 1 -P S, T M W C , xxxii, 512.) 2 Hitler, decree, September 30, 1942, N S D A P , Partei-Kanzlei, Verfügungen, ii, 5

IO-

3 For instance, Sauckel to Meyer, October 3, 1942, Document 0 17 -P S , T M W C , xxv, 72-3 ; ‘ Protokoll über die Führerbesprechung am 10., 1 1. u. 1 2 .8 .19 4 2 ’ , Document 124-R , T M W C , xxxviii, 358-9.

434

Problems and Practice

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conscription quotas looked almost impossible of fulfilment.1 Unable to visualize the difficulties, Hitler grew impatient with the military but also with Sauckel’s own staff. After visiting his headquarters, Goebbels noted that the Führer had ‘ become some­ what distrustful of Sauckel. Sauckel does not have the ability to carry through . . . this programme in practice.’ And the following month Goebbels himself commented sourly about the ‘ dumb fool from Weimar’ who ‘ allowed the heads of his labour offices [who insisted they could not fill the quotas] to take him completely in tow’ .2 ‘ Total w ar’ was at hand, with the Soviet government holding an edge both at the front and in manpower reserves. Entire age groups of the population in the occupied areas were now conscripted for labour. Wherever retreat was imminent, the Germans evacuated as many able-bodied inhabitants as they could. Many civilian residents of partisan-threatened areas were taken to Germany in a peculiar ‘ extension’ of prisoner-of-war status to non-belligerents.3 The increasingly acute manpower shortage seemed to grant Sauckel and his lieutenants a blank cheque for any measure that might bring relief. Sauckel issued another manifesto to all German agencies concerned with labour procurement. Yet there was little Sauckel could say to improve the situation.4 Goebbels could not refrain from noting in his diary : This manifesto is written in a pompous, terribly overladen baroque style. It smells from afar and gives me a pain. Sauckel is suffering from paranoia. . . . It is high time that his wings be clipped. 1 Document 17 39 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 576-7 ; Sauckel to Hitler, March 10, 1943, Document 40 7(II)-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 3 ; [O K V R Bong-Schmidt,] ‘ Akten­ vermerk’, March 10, 1943, Document 30 12 -P S , T M W C , xxxi, 488 ; ‘ Material­ sammlung’ , pp. 263-4. 2 The Goebbels Diaries, pp. 283, 325 (entries for March 9 and April n , 1943). 3 Hitler sanctioned this ‘ interpretation’ on Ju ly 8, 1943. T w o days later Himmler informed his subordinates in the occupied East : (1) The Führer has decided that the partisan-infested areas of the Northern Ukraine and Russia-Centre are to be cleared of their entire population. (2) The total able-bodied male population will be turned over to the Reich Commissar for Labour Service, according to regulations to be issued, under similar conditions as prisoners of war. (3) T h e female population will be turned over to the Plenipotentiary General for Labour Allocation for work in the Reich. . . . (Himmler, directive, Ju ly 10, 1943, Document N O -0 22 *. See also Documents N O -4 9 1* , N O -16 0 2 *, and N O -16 6 5 * ! and Speer, interrogation, Document 3720 -P S, T M W C , xxxii, 503.) 4 Sauckel, ‘ Manifesto des Generalbevollmächtigten für den Arbeitseinsatz’ , April 20, 1943, Document Sauckel-84, T M W C , xli, 228-40. It contained new emphasis on a principle earlier announced, ‘ to each according to his performance’. Fo r a discussion of this and the related wage problem, see the G B A , Handbuch ; Küppers, op. cit. ; and Documents 0 25-P S , T M W C , xxv, 87 ; 119 3 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 58 ; 2039-PS, T M W C , xxix, 239-47 ; and 3 18 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 3 13 .

CH. XX

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And the following day he added : The Sauckel manifesto . . . a. more careful reading reveals is pure nonsense.1 The Weight of Chains The effect of the OstarBeiter programme on the indigenous population was profound and ineluctable. Numerous reports testify that the German authorities were not unaware of the political impact of the programme. Almost monotonously they conclude that the unfavourable change in popular attitudes towards the Germans was strongly conditioned by, and often in direct proportion to, exposure to Ostarbeiter procurement. Secret German perlustration of mail from the occupied territories showed that the population reacts particularly strongly against the forcible separation of mothers from their babies, and of school children from their families. Those affected [by the draft] seek to evade being shipped to Germany by any means. . . . This in turn leads to an intensification of German counter-measures: among others, confiscation of grain and property; burning down of houses; forcible concentration; tying down and mishandling of those assembled ; forcible abortion of pregnant women. Resentment stimulated harsher counter-measures, which in turn caused more overt hostility. From a transit camp in Kiev it was reported that . . . scenes of beating and chicanery of those leaving for Germany and their relatives are taking place almost daily before the eyes of the population of Kiev. Relatives of . . . departing workers were not allowed to hand them food and clothes, the crying women being ruthlessly pushed into the muddy streets with rifle butts.12 People were rounded up arbitrarily in market places, movies, and churches. ‘ Horrified descriptions’, another summary of letters from the Ukraine stated, ‘ constitute a large part of the news sent to relatives in Germany. . . . In addition to the use of the whip as a form of punishment, according to available letters, the burning down of homesteads or even entire villages has been practised since early October [1942] in retaliation for failure to comply with the demands for manpower.’ 3 On transports headed for Germany, the labourers 1 The Goebbels Diaries, pp. 342, 344 (entries for April 24 and 25, 1943). 2 OKH /GenQ u, ‘ Arbeitererfassung im Osten’ , July 13, 1943 [special report, available in copy transmitted by O K W /W P r to the Taubert office], Document Occ E 4 - 1 * , Y IV O . 3 Auslandbriefprüfstelle Berlin, ‘ Auszug aus dem geheimen Stimmungsbericht [September 11 — November 1 1 , 1942]’ , Document 0 18 -P S , T M W C , xxv, 77-8.

436

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were often left unfed for days, under most unhygienic conditions, and exposed to arbitrary abuse by the accompanying German personnel. Another depressing factor was the return of disabled Ostarbeiter released by the Germans. At times, the very sight of such returnee transports — usually consisting of seriously ill, injured, and under­ nourished — was enough to evoke anxiety psychoses among those subject to conscription. Scenes of suicide, self-mutilation, and mass escapes were reported. ‘ Well-informed persons in Krivoi R og’, wrote an observant officer, ‘ estimate that of the population, which was initially about 94 per cent in our favour, now about 60 per cent await the Red Army as liberators. . . .’ 1 The price that Sauckel’s emissaries paid was to turn friends into foes and civilians into partisans. The situation faced by the Ostarbeiter in Germany was likewise marked by abuse and abomination. If there were fewer fatalities among the workers than there had been among the prisoners of war, this was due largely to the interest of the German employers in preserving their manpower. Yet the inadequacy of material facili­ ties — rations, housing, clothes, medical services — as well as the discrimination, even compared with forced labour from other German occupied countries, reduced the morale of the Ostarbeiter to a point that endangered productivity. The following picture drawn by a German officer after the war was by no means atypical: Limitations on the right to leave the camp, on wage rates, social services, and rations were even worse than for the Poles. It was said that the Ost population had always been inured to getting along on little. Punishment by whipping was more or less officially sanctioned. All sexual intercourse with German women was punished by death — either by summary court proceedings or else as a police measure. . . . On top of this, there came other measures considered as pure chicanery, such as limitations in the use of means of public transportation, intended to prevent all contact of the German population with the Ostarbeiter.2 1 See Captain Schmid to Military Government Section, Arm y Group ‘ B ’ Rear Area, Khar’kov [September 1942], Document 054-P S, T M W C , xxv, 10 3-10 ; Leyser to Rosenberg, June 17, 1943, Document 265-P S, T M W C , xxv, 3 19 -2 3 ; von Richthofen to Chief of Staff, Luftflotte 4, Ju ly 15 and September 2 1, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - 1 * , Y IV O . See also Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), pp. 195-6. 2 Buchardt, p. 82. For regulations, see the collections cited above (p. 429, n. 1) ; also T M W C , iii, 409-93 ; v, 440 ; xiv, 602-33 > x v> 2-283 ; xviii, 466-506 ; xix, 416, 522, 555. For German summaries of grievances of the workers, see Documents 054-P S, T M W C , xxv, 109, and 084-PS, T M W C , xxv, 16 1-7 7 . See also the testimony of a German physician at the Krupp plants, Document 288-D , T M W C , xxxv, 57-6 3 ; L . Haas, Auswahl und Einsatz der Ostarbeiter (Neustadt : Pfälzische Verlagsanstalt, 1944) ; and H. L . Ansbacher, ‘ T h e Problem of Inter-

CfI. X X

Ostarbeiter

437

Although the bulk of workers was ‘ farmed out’ to private em­ ployers and concerns, the German police and the SS continued to keep them under close surveillance. Escapees, if apprehended, were customarily transferred to concentration camps or put to death.1 In December 1942 the notorious ‘ Gestapo M üller’ issued an order that makes striking reading. It begins : For reasons of military importance, which need not be elaborated further, the RFSS and Chief of the German Police [Himmler] has ordered on December 14, 1942, that by the end of January 1943 at the latest, at least 35,000 able-bodied persons be transferred to concentration camps. In order to attain this figure, beginning immediately . . . Ostarbeiter and other foreign workers who have tried to escape or violated their contracts are to be delivered as fast as possible to the nearest concentration camp. . . .2 If anything, the SS treated the Eastern workers with greater cruelty than did the G BA . As the self-appointed repository of purest Nazism, the SS looked askance at the mass shipment of Untermenschen to the Reich. Even before Sauckel was appointed, Himmler had ordered that detailed ‘ security measures’ be taken for the treatment of Eastern labour conscripts. Death and concentration camp sentences were to be issued liberally for a variety of offences ranging from sexual intercourse with Germans to suspicion of sabo­ tage.3 Sauckel could count on staunch SS support whenever ‘ stern measures’ were needed to enforce his demands. And the powerhungry SS sought to expand its prerogatives in this, as in every other, field. In late 1942 when Himmler won a new victory by preting Attitude Survey Data*, Public Opinion Quarterly, xiv (19 5 0 -5 1), 126-8. For decrees on abortion and procreation of the workers, see also N M T , ii, 64, and v, 10 9 -12, 120-5. Where a German worker would be paid a wage of 35*50 R .M . a week, an Ostar­ beiter would receive 19*60 R .M . (minus deductions) of which his food and board amounted to 10*50 R .M ., i.e. a take-home pay of 9* 10 R .M . The difference between the German and Ost wage rate (in this case, 15*90 R .M .) was paid by the German employer to the state. (Küppers, op. cit. p. 36.) A separate category of forced labour used by the O T awaits special analysis. 1 On February 20, 1942, Himmler ordered that wherever necessary ‘ the workers be transferred to concentration camps or killed’ . Likewise, all Soviet workers caught while escaping were to be subjected to ‘ special treatment’ , i.e. death. (Himmler, ‘ Einsatz von Arbeitskräften aus dem Osten’ , February 20, 1942, Document 3040-PS, T M W C , xxxi, 505, 508.) 2 Chef Sipo und S D , decree, December 17, 1942, Document 0 4 1-L , T M W C , xxxvii, 437-9. Subsequent orders extended this provision. In the summer of 1943, some of the economic agencies protested the transfer of apprehended escapees to the S S ; so acute was the labour shortage that they wanted even these men back. (Pleiger to Sauckel, August 5, 1943, Document N G -5 7 0 1 * ; see also Docu­ ment 3360-PS, T M W C , xxxii, 246-7.) 3 Document 3040-PS, T M W C , xxxi, 500-12 ; and Küppers, op. cit. pp. 105-9. See also N S D A P , Partei-Kanzlei, Verfügungen, ii, 524, 527.

438

Problems and Practice

n. m

reducing the Minister of Justice to a cipher, a part of the ‘ agreement’ stipulated : Reichsfiihrer-SS has agreed with Reich Justice Minister Thierack that Justice [henceforth] declines to institute ordinary judicial proceedings against Poles and members of the Eastern peoples. These aliens shall henceforth be turned over to the police. These ‘ racially inferior’ Easterners in the Reich constituted ‘ a substantial danger, which leads forcibly to the subjection of the ethnically alien to a punitive code distinct from that applicable to German human beings’ .1 Now the SS had a free hand. Illegality was written into la w ; no Ostarbeiter was safe from the wiles and impulses of Himmler’s men. As late as October 1943, in his historic Posen address, Himmler showed that he had in no sense mellowed. After discussing the immutable inferiority of the Easterner, he went on to state : It is a matter of total indifference to me how the Russians, how the Czechs fare. . . . Whether the other peoples live in plenty or whether they croak from hunger, interests me only to the extent that we need them as slaves for our culture ; otherwise it does not interest me.2 Not until 1944 did the attitude of the SS undergo a radical alteration. The most dogmatic, the most powerful, the SS was also the slowest of the major institutions of the Third Reich to be affected by experience that ran counter to its preconceptions.3 The extremists in Berlin were in whole-hearted agreement with the policy of ‘ sternness ’ applied in the labour programme. Göring’s power was gradually waning, but occasionally — as at a top-level conference in August 1942 — he would make statements scarcely more moderate than those of Himmler; if they sounded less practi­ cable, they were also more contrived and bombastic. ‘ If someone must starve,’ he proclaimed, ‘ it will not be the Germans but rather the others.’ In his warped perception, he mournfully contrasted the state of imaginary ‘ plenty’ in which the Easterners lived with 1 R S H A , circular, November 5, 1942, Document 3 1 6 -L , T M W C , xxxviii, 99-100. 2 Himmler, 'Rede des Reichsführers-SS bei der SS-Gruppenführertagung in Posen am 4. Oktober 1 9 4 3 ’ , Document 19 19 -P S , T M W C , xxxix, 12 2 -3. 3 At the lower levels, it is true, individual S S officers were aware of the reper­ cussions of the mistreatment of Ostarbeiter and the disastrous effect of the con­ scription programme in the occupied areas. For an interesting exception, showing how in one instance ‘ realism*, in the form of labour procurement quotas, won out over dogma demanding extermination, see SS-Sturmbannführer Christensen, circular, March 19, 1943, Document 30 12 -P S , T M W C , xxxi, 493-5. For the change in S S policy, see below, pp. 448 and 618.

CTT. X X

Ostarbeiter

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the ‘ hunger’ to which, he claimed, the German people were exposed. The situation must be reversed : ‘ At long last the eternal concern for the foreigner must cease ! ’ 1 Bormann, unlike Goring, remained powerful. The instructions on the treatment of Eastern labour conscripts which he circulated among the Gauleiters stressed Germanic ‘ purity’ and Nazi dogma, and he kept reiterating that ‘ German citizens must consider it a matter of duty to maintain the requisite distance between themselves and [the Ostarbeiter]’.2 More immediately concerned with the programme was Erich Koch. In his view, the procurement of manpower was one of the two basic pillars on which his mission rested. Hence he and his deputy, Paul Dargel, laboured diligently to help Sauckel’s men fill their quotas. Time and again Koch publicly pointed with pride to the huge number of men he had supplied, the thanks he had received from Berlin, and the need to continue the same course. ‘ I have not come here to spread bliss ; I have come to help the Führer. The people must work, work, and work. . . .’ 3 In other German circles, however, the forced labour question provoked angry debate. As evidences of abuse multiplied, sugges­ tions for changes and improvements issued from diverse quarters. None of these questioned the notion of using ‘ Eastern labour’ . Rather, they justified proposed changes largely by reference to the immediate benefits which would accrue to German war production.4 The second argument advanced in favour of change was the need to neutralize the hostile reaction of the Soviet people. Moscow’s publication of captured German documents, as well as testimony of escaped Ostarbeiter constituted powerful propaganda material which deeply impressed both the Soviet population and the con­ science of the West. In a diplomatic note of April 1942 Molotov cited chapter and verse from German forced labour directives. Berlin was understandably perturbed by the effects. The results of this ambitious and well-documented radio, press, and leaf­ let campaign, which reaches into the areas of German civil administration 1 Conference of August 6,

1942, Document

17 0 -U S S R , T M W C , xxxix,

385-7,400-1. 2 Bormann, circular, May 5, 1943, and enclosed ‘ Merkblatt*, Document 205PS, T M W C , xxv, 298-9. See also Buchardt, pp. 82-3. 3 Koch, address, March 5, 1943, Document 113 0 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 10. See also Koch to Rosenberg, June 2, 1942, Document N G -1 3 2 8 * ; and Koch, New Year’s appeal, R K U , Zentralblatt, ii (1943), 1. 4 Sauckel was not deaf to such arguments and expressed similar sentiments himself. (See especially his directive, October 14, 1942, N S D A P , Partei-Kanzlei, Verfügungen, ii, 534 ; also Söhling to Hupe, February 25, 1942, Document 36 1-D ,

T M W C ’, xxxv, 70-80.)

44°

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

[a German memorandum acknowledged], must be recognized to be one of the effective reasons for the stiffening of Soviet resistance and the menacing growth of partisan activities during the current year. . . .* There was little opportunity, however, for the critics to influence the course of events. Occasional conversations or memoranda could re-emphasize the ‘ suicidal’ effects of the treatment of forced labour. They could not, however, hope to unleash the tidal wave needed to reverse the trend. The Army had no direct jurisdiction or responsi­ bility for the programme ; its protests, though occasionally mirroring elements of traditional dignity, were largely those of practical critics, not of ethical objectors. As usual, the Quartermaster General’s Office and the Wehrmacht Propaganda staff were among those militating for a change, by means of such memoranda as this : Particularly detrimental: ruthless manpower raids for labour allocation to Germany; unfair treatment of volunteer workers in the Reich. Complaints pile up. . . . Suggest prohibition of manpower raids.2 Objections were likewise raised in the field. Notably, Army Group South, which otherwise was not distinguished by political sagacity and in 1941-2 had displayed little initiative and ‘ senti­ mentality’ towards the indigenous population, became aroused. As early as October 1942, Rosenberg’s representative reported that the question of the treatment of Ukrainian Ostarbeiter causes considerable worry among the Army agencies concerned [in Army Group ‘ B ’ Rear 1 Gutkelch, ‘ Gegenwärtiger Stand der Ostarbeiter-Frage*, September 30, 1942, Document 084-PS, T M W C , xxv, 164-6. See also Alfred Gielen, ‘ Ostar­ beiter im Reich*, Die Aktion (Berlin), iv (1942), 82-7. Sauckel had not been oblivious to the propaganda potential of the entire operation. By agreement with the Rosenberg Ministry, he directed that no promises were to be made to the workers which could not later be kept. (Document 3 18 -E C , T M W C , xxxvi, 3 1 5 ; and Meyer to Lohse and Koch, March 6, 1942, Document 580-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 163.) Paradoxically, however, another grouping sought to remedy the ‘ repercussions* not by improving conditions but by stifling the flow of information about German treatment. As General Nagel declared, ‘ What matters is not what is true or false but exclusively what is believed*. (Docu­ ment 30 12 -P S , T M W C , xxxi, 489.) The Propaganda Ministry likewise insisted that ‘inadequate censorship [of letters from forced labourers] renders all propaganda measures in the occupied East illusory. It is therefore a matter of imperative necessity to attain 100 per cent control.* (Gutterer to Keitel, July 29, 1943*.) But full censorship could not be attained ; suppression was not a solution. 2 O KH /GenStdH /Gen.Q u./Abt.Kr.-Verw ., ‘ Aufzeichnung über die Ostfrage*, January 3, 1943, Document N G - 3 4 1 5 * . See also Field-Marshal von Weichs, ‘ Facts and Opinions*, M S #, 1945, H L . T he Quartermaster General’s Office compiled special summary reports on the Ostarbeiter situation, which were dis­ seminated by Wehrmacht Propaganda. (See OKH/Gen.Qu./Qu 4, report, July 13, 1943, Document Occ E 4 - 1 * Y IV O .) It is also reported that Colonel von Stauffenberg submitted a memorandum to the High Command stating that the treatment of the Ostarbeiter represented ‘ an unjustifiable provocation of the East [unverant­ wortliche Herausforderung des Ostens]*. (Die Tat [Zürich], November 25, 1946.)

CH. XX

Ostarbeiter

441

Area]. The Commanding General has urged me soon to visit some camps in the Reich in person so as to report the findings to the respective offices and to secure immediate redress. The Army Group Rear Area [in which there were no sizeable partisan bands] is by no means pacified.1 A few months later when the military situation became critical, the southern sector, which was located nearest the Stalingrad front, stopped shipments of forced labourers, primarily because of the strain on transportation facilities. Later on, in direct defiance of directives from Berlin, General Friderici, who commanded the army group rear area, forbade the conscription of labour. This argument, as General Nagel explained a few days later, was prompted by expediency, not morality. It was due to the belief that . . . if labour recruitment continued, the danger would arise that Army and local war economy demands could no longer be met. It was also necessary to leave certain labour reserves in the Army Group Area for a possible building of fortifications [Ostwall].2 Likewise, in a famous memorandum ordering a more circumspect policy for his Army Group ‘ A ’ area, Field-Marshal Kleist provided that Ostarbeiter be recruited on a purely voluntary basis.3 Given the hostility with which his order was met by the economic branches in Berlin, it was not difficult for the extremists to get the Wirt­ schaftsstab to join in an attack against him. To the order of the Commanding General of Army Group ‘ A ’ [the record read] that in the future, recruitment must take place only on a voluntary basis, since the residents of the Crimea and Ukraine are to be considered our allies, Wirtschaftsstab Ost, Labour Section, has informed the Labour Section of Economic Inspectorate South that in view of the present need for labour in German agriculture and armament industry, which is far greater than before, and in view of the fact that in recent months the Russian population has not shown the least inclination to work in the service of the Germans, and since it has long since been accustomed to being ordered around, the use of certain forcible means [gewisse Zwangsmittel] will not be avoidable.4 Sauckel took the bull by the horns and wired Hitler on March 10, W4 3 : Unfortunately several Commanding Generals in the East have for­ bidden the labour conscription of men and women in the conquered 1 Theurer to Leibbrandt, October 7, 1942, Document 054-P S, T M W C , xxv, 102-3. 2 Document 30 12 -P S , T M W C , xxxi, 488. 3 Von Kleist, ‘ Behandlung der Zivilbevölkerung im Operationsgebiet’, Feb­ ruary 17, 1943, E A P 9 9 /114 5 *, C R S . 4 ‘ Materialsammlung’, pp. 264-5 (entry for March 9, 1943).

442

Problems and Practice

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Soviet territories — for political reasons, as Gauleiter Koch informs me. My Führer! I ask you to countermand these orders so as to enable me to carry out my assignment. The very next day Berlin confirmed that the labour programme must remain in force, and all military agencies were requested to co­ operate in support of it.1 It was typical of the post-Stalingrad atmosphere that the field commanders could no longer hold their own. Ostarbeiter and Ostministerium The conscription and treatment of Eastern labour in Germany took place with little reference to the Ostministerium, which had ostensibly been created precisely to direct and co-ordinate all efforts pertaining to Soviet nationals. Rosenberg’s Ministry had become a frustrated body whose tired members carried little weight. Their general outlook, particularly on the nationality question, led the Ministry, in spite of itself, to assume a more ‘ humane’ position than the agencies directly responsible for the Ostarbeiter pro­ gramme. Its staff’s wider acquaintance with the East produced greater scepticism about the means employed in conscripting man­ power. Such feelings were typified by the comments evoked by Sauckel’s address at the Ostministerium shortly after his appoint­ ment. Peter Kleist, if one can trust his memory, rose to stress the dangers stemming from the application of force and compulsion. He did not protest the recruitment but merely warned against the effects of the extreme methods to be employed in its realization. ‘ If one takes these [warnings] into account,’ he concluded, ‘ the SauckelAktion will not lack success.’ 2 It was to further its success, not impede it, that the advice was proffered. Given the constellation of forces at the Nazi apex, the Ostmini­ sterium was soon in no position to affect Sauckel’s doings. However, it took a definite stand in the area which distinguished its political outlook from that of other German agencies — nationality policy. Rosenberg’s staff objected to lumping all Easterners together in an undifferentiated heap of Ostarbeiter. There was no problem with the Baltic nationals; even Goring and Sauckel agreed on a special status for them. Originally, these labourers were entitled to ‘ receive privileges’ ; later, native residents of the Baltic areas were exempted from Ostarbeiter service.3 1 Document 40 7(II)-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 3-4 ; Stapf to Nagel, March 1 1, 1943» Document 30 12 -P S , T M W C , xxxi, 491. 2 Peter Kleist, op. cit. pp. 194-53 In November 19 41, Goring agreed that their wages could be raised to the (exceedingly low) level of Polish workers in the Reich. (Document 119 3 -P S ,

CH. XX

Ostarbeiter

443

The situation was different for the Ukrainians. Here the Ost­ ministerium had a precedent in the temporary segregation of Ukrainian prisoners of war. The latter, it will be recalled, had soon been submerged in the general mass of captives, and similarly, as early as November 1941, Goring decided that Ukrainian labourers were ‘ to enjoy no special treatment’.1 Thereafter the Rosenberg staff could muster no compelling reason to segregate the workers by nationalities, let alone improve the treatment of some at the expense of others. The persistent interest in the fate (and utilization) of the nonRussian nationalities was, however, an important consideration in the Ostministerium’s establishment of a new agency in the summer of 1942. Designed to handle all ‘ non-political’ aspects of Eastern personnel in the Reich, the Central Agency for the Peoples of the East [Zentralstelle für die Völker des Ostens, known for short as ZAVO] managed, without undue difficulty, to expand its functions. Largely because of the confusion of jurisdictions and the indifference of war-weary bureaucrats, the representatives of ZAVO, operating under the aegis of Gerhard von Mende, the ‘ nationality professor’ , succeeded ultimately in inspecting labour camps in the Reich and occasionally even in persuading officials to take modest remedial steps.2 When, on September 30, 1942, ZAVO issued a telling indictment of Ostarbeiter policy, Rosenberg agreed to forward its contents to Sauckel — only to have the latter reply that according to the Führer’s wishes he had exclusive competence in this field.3 Most of ZAVO ’s contribution thereafter took place informally and at times surrep­ titiously. On the surface, meanwhile, the avalanche of memoranda con­ tinued. Bräutigam, in his famous note of October 1942, listed T M W C , xxvii, 58.) For their exemption, see ‘ Verordnung über die Einsatz­ bedingungen der Ostarbeiter’ , June 30, 1942, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1942, i, 419. Lohse, on a variety of grounds, clashed with Sauckel from the summer of 1942 on, and Sauckel, clearly aware of this, was almost apologetic in his address to the R K O staff during a visit to Riga in April 1943. (Document I7 0 -U S S R , T M W C , xxxix, 398-405 ; and ‘ Rede des Gauleiters und Reichsstatthalters Sauckel’, n.d., M S * .) For the record, the R K O , i.e. largely Belorussia, obeyed his directives, and Lohse advised the German officials responsible for the programme ‘ not to shrink back from extraordinary measures’ to carry them out. (R K O , circular, M ay 3, 1943, Document 2280-PS, T M W C , xxx, 102-3.) 1 Document 119 3 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 59. See also Document N I-460, N M T , xiii, 964-8, for the September 1941 project to take only Ukrainians .because of their greater expected reliability. 2 Interviews G -6, G -9. See Peter Kleist, op. cit. pp. 196-9, for a rather glowing picture. Formally, the Z A V O also encompassed ‘ welfare’ activities relating to prisoners of war, Eastern volunteers on leave or convalescing in Germany, and a special indoctrination camp. 1 Document 084-PS, T M W C , xxv, 161-9.

444

Problems and Practice

PT . I l l

the forced labour issue among the various abuses of German Ostpolitik: A veritable manhunt set in. Without regard for state of health or age, human beings were shipped to Germany like freight, and it became clear, once they had arrived, that more than 100,000 had to be sent home because of severe illness or other disabilities. It requires no elaboration to understand that these methods — which of course are not being applied in this form to nationals of enemy countries like Holland or Norway, but only to the Soviet Union — have their repercussions on the resistance of the Red Army.1 The issue was impressed upon Rosenberg once again at the conference with the military commanders in December. ‘ The news about poor treatment in Germany’, one of them commented, ‘ has increased the difficulties.’ Another stated that ‘ the export of manpower to Germany has exceeded the limits of the permissible’ .12 Three days later, Rosenberg, momentarily aroused, registered a complaint with Sauckel; though polite and almost apologetic, the Ostminister none the less made his point.3 He made it — and let things rest there. He remained anxious to co-operate with the Ostarbeiter programme. When in July 1943, after his rebuff by Hitler, the labour question was debated at a top-level conference in his office, Rosenberg meekly thanked Sauckel for his ‘ understanding’ and ‘ comradeship’.4 Rosenberg was aware of the impact of this issue on popular attitudes in the East. I f he was powerless to act against it, there is also no evidence that he himself was ever seriously exercised over it. He had helped set the stage on which others, with more logic and determination, were now playing their parts, while he lingered in the wings. Symbols of Infamy The term, Ostarbeiter, was itself indicative of the attitude of official Germany toward the mass, nameless in collective inferiority and unworthy of more specific designation. German policy and the struggle over it were best symbolized by the special insignia imposed on the Ostarbeiter. The emblem, or Ostabzeichen, an embroidered 1 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung’, October 25, 1942, Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 338-9. 1 Protocol, December 18, 1942. 3 Rosenberg to Sauckel, December 2 1, 1942, Document 0 18 -P S , T M W C , xxv, 74 *7 4 Berger, ‘ Aktenvermerk’, Ju ly 14, 1943, Document N O -3370 *. On this issue, Berger sided with Koch and Sauckel, proudly stressing this fact in his report to Himmler.

CH. XX

Ostarbeiter

445

square bearing the inscription ‘ O S T ’, was worn on every garment of each worker brought to the Reich from the occupied East. At a time when all Jews and inmates of Nazi concentration camps were likewise compelled to wear degrading insignia, it was bound to be considered, by Germans and Easterners alike, as an odious symbol of its wearer’s inferior status.1 The idea of a special insignia for the Eastern workers stemmed largely from a sense of insecurity during the early Untermensch era, when for the first time it was decided to bring Soviet civilians to the Reich. So pervasive was the fear of ‘ contamination’ that all East­ erners were to be made readily recognizable. The product of security considerations and ideological preconceptions, the insignia appeared first as the result of Göring’s directives of November 1941.12 On February 20, 1942, when the first detailed instructions were issued by the SS, the Ostabzeichen was officially introduced and explained at length.3 When Sauckel took office, it was ready for use. Rosenberg, too, considered the insignia ‘ necessary for security reasons’ . But, as he recalled two years later, he had certain reservations : . . . The Ostministerium [he wrote] decided that differentiating badges should be worn, so that the three large groups of Eastern peoples — Russians, Belorussians, and Ukrainians — should each wear their respective national brassards. . . . The envisioned partition of the East must be prepared from the very beginning in every respect.4 Rosenberg’s political ideas, however, were not in vogue. As Sauckel saw no reason for national distinctions, the decision fell to the SS, which was responsible for the ‘ security’ aspects of the labour programme. Its answer, not unnaturally, was a clear-cut ‘ N o ’ . Himmler, in his directive on the use of the Ostabzeichen, turned the tables on Rosenberg: the introduction of national designations, he argued, would officially revive the undesirable term ‘ Russia’ for the Great Russian workers — something Rosenberg himself was bound to oppose. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of Galician Ukrainians from the Government-General were working in Germany without insignia and would have to be integrated into 1

A t th e N u r e m b e r g trials, S a u c k e l h im s e lf ca lle d it a ‘ d is c rim in a tin g b a d g e ’ . W C . x v . gS 'i 1 A t th a t tim e , n o d e tails w e r e g iv e n b e y o n d th e in d ic a tio n th a t a s p e c ia l e m b le m w o u ld b e w o r n b y all S o v ie t la b o u r in th e R e ic h . ( D o c u m e n t 1 1 9 3 - P S , T M W C , x x v ii, 5 9 .) 3 K ü p p e r s , op. cit. p . 1 0 9 . 4 R o s e n b e r g to H it le r , S e p t e m b e r 2 8 , 1 9 4 4 , D o c u m e n t N O - 2 5 4 4 * .

1T M

G.R.R.— 2 G

446

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

any new scheme. Himmler thus found enough pretexts to oppose the introduction of national distinctions. From the point of view of security, moreover, his Gestapo could see no difference in the reliability of the various Eastern groups. For German officialdom, the changes suggested by Rosenberg would have meant additional confusion and multiplication of categories and directives.1 The element of expediency remained supreme in the treatment of the Ostarbeiter, and it was by reference to it that some minor concessions were wrung from official circles on behalf of the workers : the principle of periodic furloughs was introduced; no discrimina­ tion in rations was to take place ; and domestic servants from among the Ostarbeiter were to receive the same treatment as German help.2 It was in this spirit that Sauckel proudly and with unusual gusto declared in January 1944: ‘ The better I treat [the Ostarbeiter] and succeed in influencing their own reactions, the more I can avail myself of their ability to perform’.3 It was similarly the utilitarian arguments of the Army that managed to draw attention to the question of the Ostabzeichen again in the winter of 1943-4. Men like General Köstring, whose concern was the ‘ Eastern troops’ serving with the German Army, kept reiterating that knowledge of the discriminatory emblems lowered the morale of his men and their faith in German good will.4 Finally, Keitel was persuaded to intervene in a manner that sheds a curious light on his own attitude. Given the German manpower shortage, he informed Rosenberg, the Eastern troops were ‘ irreplaceable’ . Hence one had to do everything to improve their spirit of loyalty. There can be no doubt [he. wrote] that, in the absence of the pos­ sibility of offering them political aims [mangels politischer Zielsetzungs­ möglichkeiten], the only means suited herefor is the care and welfare of the soldier and his kin and the fair treatment which recognizes per­ formance. 1 H im m le r ,

d ire c tiv e ,

N ovem ber

13,

19 4 2 ,

N SD AP,

P a r t e i-K a n z le i,

Ver­

fügungen, ii, 5 7 1 - 2 .

2

T h i s w a s ‘ ju s t ifia b le ’ b e c a u se th e b e st a m o n g th e y o u n g a n d p re tty U k r a in ia n g ir ls so e m p lo y e d m ig h t b e c o n s id e re d e lig ib le fo r ‘ G e r m a n iz a t io n ’ . ( D o c u m e n t 0 2 5 - P S , T M W C , x x v , 8 5 .) A c t u a l ly th e tre a tm e n t o f th ese g ir ls w a s o fte n s tr ik in g ly d is c rim in a to r y ; m a n y w e r e n o t a llo w e d to s ta y alo n e w ith G e r m a n c h ild re n o r to eat at th e sa m e ta b le w ith G e r m a n s . ( In te r v ie w G - 1 0 . ) K le is t re c a lls (op. cit. p p . 1 9 7 - 8 ) h o w th e o fficial re g u la tio n s a ro u se d h im to re fe r s a rc a s tic ­ a lly to th e e m p lo y m e n t o f N e g r o n u rse s in th e U n ite d S ta te s ‘ w ith o u t th is fa c t h a v in g re su lte d in s u b sta n tia l c h a n g e s in th e c h ild r e n ’s sk in c o l o u r ’ . F o r o th e r m in o r im p ro v e m e n ts in th e statu s o f th e O sta rb e ite r, see also D o c u m e n t 3 1 5 - P S , T M W C , x x v , 3 4 6 -5 0 ; and D o cu m en t N O - i 8 3 i * . 3 S a u c k e l, s p e e c h , J a n u a r y 1 7 , 1 9 4 4 , D o c u m e n t S a u c k e l-8 8 , T M W C , x li, 2 4 2 . 4 In te r v ie w s G - 6 , G - 1 9 , G - 3 1 ; H e r w a r t h , op. cit. p p . 2 0 - 2 .

C H.

XX

Ostarbeiter

447

Not even for reasons of police security, Keitel declared, was the Ostabzeichen any longer justifiable.1 Rosenberg forwarded the letter to Berger for appropriate consideration. Meanwhile the Propaganda Ministry had been won over by those agitating for the elimination of the insignia. Once Goebbels had expressed himself in favour of improvements for the Ostar­ beiter, Taubert considered it safe to do likewise, especially after he was pressed both by Bräutigam, with whom he was in frequent contact, and by some employees of his Vineta and A nti-Komintern. In late 1943 Taubert was persuaded to intervene with Berger,12 who had just recently joined the Rosenberg Ministry and was eager to demonstrate his ‘ puli’ with Himmler. Moreover, Berger’s ‘ con­ version’ on this issue coincided with the beginnings of a general re-orientation in SS thinking, and the SS had already permitted a few exceptions to its ironclad Eastern policy. As a result, Berger became the quixotic champion of a revision in the Ostabzeichen directives.3 Flattered to be the centre of attention and the standardbearer of a ‘ good cause’, he found it opportune to question whether labour recruitment could still be justified, given its political and economic effects in the East. ‘ The cessation of this forced con­ scription’ , he wrote to Sauckel, ‘ would, I am convinced, contribute substantially to the pacification of the country and would accordingly be exploited by me in propaganda.’ 4 He proceeded to obtain the consent of Himmler and ‘ Gestapo Müller ’ for a new set of regulations. In February 1944 he was successful, and at the end of March a general directive was issued, placing the Ostarbeiter on a par with other foreign labour in the Reich. Pointing to the ‘ increasing recruitment of members of the Ostvölker into the Wehrmacht and S S ’ , Berger now requested Midler’s consent to do away with the 1 K e ite l to R o s e n b e r g , Ja n u a r y 2 3 , 1 9 4 4 , E A P 9 9 / 4 1 1 * , C R S . O th e rs o n th e p e r ip h e r y o f G e r m a n Ostpolitik e x e rte d sim ila r effo rts. A s F in a n c e M in is t e r S c h w e r in v o n K r o s ig k n o sta lg ic a lly w ro te to G o e b b e ls a y e a r later : F o r y e a rs I h a v e , o ra lly a n d in w r itin g , e x p re sse d m y s e lf a g a in st th e e q u a tio n o f O sta rb e ite r (as e x p re sse d e v e n in official d e cre e s) w it h ‘ P o le s, J e w s , an d g y p s i e s ’ an d a g a in st the u n d iffe re n tia te d Ostabzeichen , b u t to no avail. Un­ fo rtu n a te ly , w e a lw a y s h esitate fo r a lo n g tim e b e fo re d r a w in g th e rig h t c o n ­ c lu sio n s. A p p a r e n t ly he h ad no h esitatio n in fin d in g G e r m a n p o lic y to w a rd ‘ P o le s, J e w s , a n d g y p s i e s ’ to be b ased o n ‘ the rig h t c o n c lu s io n s ’ . ( S c h w e r in v o n K r o s ig k to G o e b b e ls , M a r c h 1 2 , 1 9 4 5 * , H L . ) 2 In te r v ie w s G - 1 1 , G - 2 3 ; an d K le is t, op. cit. p. 1 9 8 . 3 T a u b e r t , w h o s e post facto a c c o u n ts are h a r d ly tr u s t w o r th y , late r p r o u d ly a ttr ib u te d to h im s e lf th e k e y role in th is fig h t b y h a v in g p e rsu a d e d B e r g e r to in te rv e n e w ith H im m le r fo r an alteratio n . ( T a u b e r t , ‘ A b s c h l u s s b e r i c h t ’ , D e c e m b e r 1 9 4 4 , D o c u m e n t G - P a - 1 4 * , Y I V O , p. 3 0 .) 4 B e r g e r to S a u c k e l, O c to b e r 2 9 , 1 9 4 3 , D o c u m e n t N O - 2 0 1 9 * .

448

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

insignia for nationals of the Caucasus and for Tatars, Kalmyks, and Cossacks.1 The bulk of Slavic nationals were not affected, even though they formed the overwhelming mass of the Ostarbeiter. What had prevailed were strictly military considerations of morale, for the non-Slavic ‘ legions’ and the Cossack divisions formed the bulk of ‘ Eastern’ military combat units on the German side. Once the new sets of directives had been approved, however, pressure for further changes could be applied. Other attempts were to follow.12 Better quarters, better rations, fewer tax deductions, better mail service, better clothing, reunion of next of kin were some of the issues pressed.3 Developments in the military utilization of Easterners had by now overtaken the Ostarbeiter question, and the iron logic of events which had led to a relaxation of policy towards the use of Easterners as troops led next to the ‘ liberalization’ of regulations for forced labour.4 The argument was restated a few months later by General Köstring, the Russian-born head of the ‘ Volunteer’ units in the O K H : ‘ the Eastern troops have become indispensable for the R eich; their morale suffers severely since their kin among the Ostarbeiter continue to be subjected to iniquities and discrimination, down to a prohibition to visit movie houses.’ Köstring refused to take responsibility for the loyalty of the Osttruppen unless their status was substantially improved.5 In the spring and summer of 1944, as the first steps were being taken for a belated implementation of large-scale ‘ political warfare ’ (including eventually the use of General Vlasov), the insignia skein was finally disentangled. In substance, the result was a compromise between the ‘ liberalizers’ and the Bormann-Sauckel wing. Para­ doxically, it amounted to espousing the Rosenberg thesis at a time when Rosenberg’s stock had never been lower. The new regula­ tions, drafted in late April, introduced on May 1, and revised on 1 In te r v ie w G - n ; B e r g e r to M ü lle r , M a r c h 2 4 , 1 9 4 4 , D o c u m e n t N O - 1 8 6 6 * . H im m le r tu rn e d d o w n B ra u tig a m *s su g g e stio n th a t all ‘ sp e cia lists * a n d in te lle ctu a ls, re g a rd le ss o f n a tio n a lity , be lik e w ise e x e m p te d fro m w e a rin g th e in sig n ia . See also ‘ B o r*b a za p ra v a “ o s to v s k ik h ” ra b o c h ik h *, B or'ba ( M u n ic h ) , no. 1 4 (O c to b e r 19 4 8 ), pp. 2 5 -7 2 F o r th e ‘ n e w o rd e r*, see ‘ V e r o r d n u n g ü b e r die E in s a t z b e d in g u n g e n d er O s ta rb e ite r* , M a r c h 2 5 , 1 9 4 4 , a n d im p le m e n tin g d ire c tiv e s , M a r c h 2 6 , 1 9 4 4 , G B A , Handbuch , p p . 2 0 6 - 1 5 , a n d Reichsgesetzblatt , 1 9 4 4 , i, 6 8 - 7 0 . 3 O tto B rä u tig a m , ‘ Ü b e r b lic k ü b e r die b ese tzten O stg e b ie te * ( T ü b in g e n : In stitu t fü r B e s a tz u n g s fra g e n , 1 9 5 4 ) , P* 944 M o r e o v e r , th e se w e re th e m o n th s p re c e d in g the A llie d la n d in g in F r a n c e , w h e r e a n u m b e r o f E a s te r n u n its m ig h t h a v e fo u n d it e a sy to d e se rt to th e W e s te r n A llie s . 5 O K H / G e n S t d H / G e n . d . F r e i w . V e r b . , ‘ A n s p r a c h e G e n e r a l K ö s tr in g bei d er B e s p r e c h u n g m it V e r tr e t e r n o b e rste r R e ic h s b e h ö rd e n *, J u l y 3 0 , 1 9 4 4 , D o c u m e n t

N O -3492*.

CH. XX

Ostarbeiter

449

June 19, 1944, abandoned the term ‘ O S T ’ but not the insignia. Depicted as a reward for faithful performance of duty, a new Volks­ tumsabzeichen, or national insignia, replaced the old emblem, and it, too, was to be worn on all occasions. What had heretofore been degrading was now offered as a token of pride and tradition — for the Ukrainians, the symbolic trident; for the Belorussians, a syn­ thetic emblem consisting of an ear of corn and a cog wheel; for the Russians, Vlasov’s symbol, the Cross of St. George. The Untermensch had been granted citizenship ! 1 Propaganda to the Easterners now banked on their forgetfulness : The Ostabzeichen has recently been abolished. The workers from the East now wear honourable national emblems. This is evidence of the recognition of their work in the common struggle against Bolshevism.2 But the time had passed when such a manoeuvre might have worked. The effect, or rather the lack thereof, was a surprise to the Germans. In the words of one observer : The Ostarbeiter stated that this measure [the new insignia], too, was one of compulsion and that, in spite of all the pretty declarations, it did not dispel the suspicion that in the last analysis the distinct status of Soviet citizens was being perpetuated. They asked why other nonGerman workers were not being compelled to wear ‘ national insignia ’ and why Caucasian and Turkic nationals, who were equally Soviet citizens, were exempt from the regulations.3 However, other questions had come to take precedence in the minds of the top Nazi leaders. In his talk with Himmler in midSeptember 1944, it was General Vlasov who reopened the question almost as a prerequisite to collaboration. The abolition of the Ostabzeichen was a matter of principle, a symbol, and its retention was a practical obstacle to the recruitment campaign into ‘ his’ army which Vlasov hoped to initiate. Most of his future cadres had to come from among the forced labourers. Himmler promised to help but in fact did not commit himself.4 Actually he continued to insist that the insignia could not be abolished. In late 1944 when Berger once more asked his chief to renounce further use of the emblems (by then anyway largely unenforced), the reply was that the insignia 1 4P o liz e iv e r o rd n u n g ü b e r d ie K e n n tlic h m a c h u n g d e r im R e ic h b e fin d lic h e n O s ta rb e ite r u n d -a rb e ite rin n e n , v o m 1 9 . J u n i 1 9 4 4 ’ , Reichsgesetzblatt , 1 9 4 4 , i, 1 4 7 ; an d C h e f S ip o u n d S D , iv B , c irc u la r , J u l y 1 7 , 1 9 4 4 * . In a d d itio n , th e n e w re g u la tio n s p r o v id e d fo r sp e cia l a w a rd s to 'g o o d ’ O s ta rb e ite r a n d th e e x e m p tio n o f 3 0 0 0 scie n tists a n d sk illed p ro fe ssio n a ls fro m fo r c e d la b o u r statu s. 2 Otvety gazety ‘ Dobrovolets* [D a b e n d o r f, 1 9 4 4 ] , se c tio n 3 6 . 3 B u c h a r d t, p . 1 7 0 . 4 F is c h e r , op. cit. p. 7 8 ; B u c h a r d t, p p . 3 0 0 - 1 , 3 2 7 - 9 .

450

Problems and Practice

PT . I l l

were essential for reasons of security, since the Russians, Vlasov or no Vlasov, continued to be unreliable.1

War conditions can account in some measure for the harsh treat­ ment of the Ostarbeiter. Yet many of the ugliest aspects of labour conscription cannot be explained except by reference to the basic Untermensch philosophy. The attitude of scorn and fear was too deeply engrained to be shed at will, even in a programme that pursued purely short-term goals. When a realization of its suicidal effect dawned on some of its sponsors, the time for palliatives had passed. Here, as in other areas of German Ostpolitik, the epitaph, writ in cold blood, was : Too little understanding and too late. In terms of work performed, the programme proved to be reasonably successful. Thousands died and thousands escaped, but hundreds of thousands — grudgingly, protesting — toiled for Germany. In ultimate results, all their labour was in vain as Germany went down in defeat. The treatment to which they were subjected meanwhile provided fuel of the most combustive sort against the engineers of the programme. 1 B e r g e r to H im m le r , D e c e m b e r 20, 1944*, and re p ly , B r a n d t to B e rg e r, D e c e m b e r 30, 1944*. S e e also H ilg e r , ‘ A u f z e i c h n u n g ’ , Ja n u a r y 11, 1945, D o c u ­ m e n t N G -3024*. E v e n in 1945 S p e e r ’ s an d S a u c k e l’ s m e n v ig o ro u s ly p ro tested a g a in st th e d ra ft o f ‘ t h e i r ’ O s ta rb e ite r into th e e m e rg in g K O N R a rm y .

ANNEX TABLE [C U M U L A T IV E T o ta l G erm an Labour N eed

D a te 19 4 2 Feb. M arch A p r il M ay Ju n e Ju ly Aug. Sep t. O c t.

I :

TO TA L

O S T A R B E IT E R ACTU AL

T h e r e o f, F o r e ig n L a b o u r Q u o ta

S T A T IS T IC S

F U L F IL M E N T

IN

T h e r e o f , O sta rb e ite r Q u o ta 1

|

1,6 0 0 ,0 0 0 c *

d

1,0 0 0 ,0 0 0

[ 5 3 ,0 0 0 ] b [110 ,0 0 0 ]e [ 2 8 3 ,0 0 0 ] « [6 0 7 ,0 0 0 ] e [ 9 7 2 ,0 0 0 ] e

d

[ 1 ,6 3 9 ,0 0 0 ] * 2 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 c * 9

1,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 c

1,0 0 0 ,0 0 0

O th e r In fo r m a tio n

9

| ;'

1 !

6 2 7 ,0 0 0 a 1,6 0 0 ,0 0 0 c

BR ACK ETS]

i

[ M o s t ly v o lu n ta ry re c ru itm e n t] j[ [ O f th e se , 2 0 0 ,0 0 0 fro m ! [ 1 4 ,0 0 0 - 2 0 ,0 0 0 d a ily ] 1

RKU] 3 \ \

[1,2 0 0 ,0 0 0 ] h [2 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 2 ?] 9

i

1 i

i

1 1 ; ;

; [ O f th e se , 8 4 0 ,0 0 0 fro m m il. a reas, j 7 7 0 ,0 0 0 fro m R K U ] y 1 [ 1 0 ,0 0 0 d a ily ] k* 1

| | j

I I

{ :

1943 Ja n . ! Feb. M arch

1 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 c

1,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 c

A p r il I Ju n e

( 5 0 0 ,0 0 0 ) 1 1 1,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 k♦

[ 3 ,3 8 4 ,0 0 0 ] ° 1 [ 4 , 9 5 0 , 0 0 0 j] »

[ 1 ,9 8 2 ,0 0 0 ] * [2 ,2 15 ,0 0 0 ]

; O c t. |

p

[ O f th ese, 7 1 0 , 0 0 0 fro m

R K U ] u%

j [ O f th ese, 9 4 4 ,0 0 0 fro m m il. areas, 1 , 2 7 1 , 0 0 0 fro m c iv . areas] p

1 1944

Ja n . Ju n e Sep t. O c t.

4 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 c*

q

9 0 0 ,0 0 0 c

4 0 0 ,0 0 0

;

!

1

[2 ,17 5 ,0 0 0

j]0 ! 1

i 1

[ 1 ,9 0 0 ,0 0 0

X ?]r

1

?9

;

[3 ,8 19 ,0 0 0 ]0

! [4 ,0 5 0 ,0 0 0 ] 0

1

1945 Ja n .

[1,3 5 0 ,0 0 0 ] * [ 1 ,4 8 0 ,0 0 0 ] 3 n [ 1 ,6 8 5 ,0 0 0 ] n

1

1 E x c lu d in g G a lic ia n s a n d w o r k in g p riso n e rs o f w a r. 2 In c lu d in g p ris o n e rs o f w a r . 3 A c t u a l ly on h a n d (ra th e r th a n , as in e a rlie r fig u re s, to tal c o n s c r ip te d ).

452

Problems and Practice NO TES

TO

TABLE

PT . I l l

I

° V ie r ja h re s p la n , d e c re e , F e b r u a r y 2 4 , 1 9 4 2 ; R M f d b O . to R K O an d R K U , M a r c h 6, 1 9 4 3 , D o cu m e n t 5 8 0 -P S , T M W C , x x v i, 1 6 1 - 5 . b ‘ M a t e r ia ls a m m lu n g ’ , p . 2 6 1 . c S a u c k e l, te s tim o n y , T M W C , x v , 5 3 . d S a u c k e l, sp e e c h , A p r i l 1 5 , 1 9 4 2 , D o c u m e n t 3 1 8 - E C , T M W C , x x x v i, 3 1 1 - 1 2 . 6 S a u c k e l to H it le r , J u l y 2 7 , 1 9 4 2 , D o c u m e n t 1 2 9 6 - P S , T M W C , x x v ii, 1 1 5 - 2 1 . S a u c k e l, c o n fe re n c e , S e p t e m b e r 4 , 1 9 4 2 , D o c u m e n t 0 2 5 - P S , T M W C , x x v , 8 4 -7 . ‘ M a t e r ia ls a m m lu n g * , p . 2 6 3 ; Neue Zürcher Zeitung, J a n u a r y 1 4 , 1 9 4 3 . h Deutsche Bergwerkszeitung, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 1 9 4 2 ; E u g e n e K u lis c h e r , Displace­ ment of Population ( M o n t r e a l : In te rn a tio n a l L a b o u r O ffice , 1 9 4 3 ) , p p . 1 6 0 - 2 . * S a u c k e l, sp e e c h , F e b r u a r y 5 , 1 9 4 3 , D o c u m e n t 1 7 3 9 - P S , T M W C , x x v ii, 6 0 1 . * Ibid. 5 8 1 . T h i s fig u re o f 5 0 0 ,0 0 0 w a s s u p e rs e d e d b y th e 1,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 q u o ta in th e re a llo c atio n in M a r c h 1 9 4 3 . * ‘ M a t e r ia ls a m m lu n g ’ , p . 2 6 5 . 1 S a u c k e l to R o s e n b e r g , M a r c h 1 7 , 1 9 4 3 , D o c u m e n t 0 1 9 - P S , T M W C , x x v , 8 0 ; S a u c k e l to H it le r , A p r i l 1 5 , 1 9 4 3 , D o c u m e n t 4 0 7 ( V I ) - P S , T M W C , x x v i, 5 . n [O K V R B o n g - S c h m id t ,] ‘ A k t e n v e r m e r k ’ , M a r c h 10 , 19 4 3 , D ocum ent 3 0 1 2 - P S , T M W C , x x x i, 4 8 6 . 0 K a r l B r a n d t et al .9 Management of Agriculture and Food in the GermanOccupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe ( S t a n fo r d : S t a n fo r d U n iv e r s i t y P re s s , 1953), P- 6 1 5 . v ‘ M a t e r ia ls a m m lu n g ’ , p p . 2 6 6 - 7 . q L a m m e r s to S a u c k e l, J a n u a r y 4 , 1 9 4 4 , a n d S a u c k e l to L a m m e r s , J a n u a r y 4 , 1 9 4 4 , D o c u m e n t 1 2 9 2 - P S , T M W C , x x v ii, 1 0 7 - 1 0 . r E d w a r d L . D e u s s , ‘ A p p r o x im a t e n u m b e r o f fo re ig n e rs p u t to w o rk fo r the G e r m a n w a r e ffo rt in th e O ld R e i c h ’ , N o v e m b e r 1 , 1 9 4 5 , D o c u m e n t 2 5 2 0 - P S , T M W C , x x x , 5 8 8 -9 . 5 K o c h to R o s e n b e r g , J u n e 2 , 1 9 4 2 , D o c u m e n t N G - 1 3 2 9 * . 1 Deutscher Volkswirt (B e r lin ), J u l y 1 7 , 1 9 4 2 . M R K U , Zentralblatt, ii ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 1 . * R M f d b O . , C h e fg r u p p e W ir t s c h a fts p o lit is c h e K o o p e r a tio n , Informations­ dienst , 1 9 4 3 , no. 2 - 3 , p . 6.

1

0

T A B L E II O S T A R B E IT E R C O N SC R IP T IO N : BY A R E A S OF O R IG IN 1 (Total through June 30, 1944)

Area of Origin Ukraine and. adjacent Army areas (Army Groups South, later ‘ A ’ and ‘ E ’) Army Group Centre Army Group North Belorussia (civil area) Ostland (Russian refugees) Ostland (indigenous)

Total Shipped to Germany 2,196,166 284,288 67,409 1 16,082 5 0 .4 7 5

78,249 2,792,669

1 The above figures, in contrast with Table I, indicate the number of persons conscripted rather than the total of surviving or working Ostarbeiter. Figures are based on VSt/WiStab Ost bei OKH/GenQu, ‘ Vortragsnotiz für den Herrn Generalquartiermeis ter’ , July 28, 1944, Wi/ID 2.455*, CRS.

CH. XX

Ostarbeiter TABLE O ST A R B E IT E R

453

III

EM PLO YM EN T

(A s o f D ecem b er 19 4 4 ) 1

Males 1,036,810 Females 1,075,334 Total

2,112,144

Of these, in agriculture 725,000 in mining 93,000 in machine andequipment construction 180,000 in metal industry 170,000 in railroad 122,0 0 0 1 B a s e d o n F W i A m t / A g . F , ‘ B e itr a g z u m K T B E A P 99/49*, CR S.

1944,

1 1 . - 1 7 . 1 2 . 4 4 ’ , D e ce m b e r 20,

C H A P T E R XXI

K U L T U R AND TH E U N T E R M E N S C H T h e y sh a ll d o n o b ra in w o rk . . . o r else w e sh all re a r o u r m o st d e te rm in e d e n e m y .— A d o lf H it l e r

The Height of Folly W h il e Nazi aims of territorial aggrandizement and economic exploitation, fantastic though they were, differed only quantitatively from earlier German imperialist schemes, the same was decidedly not true of cultural policy. Nazi planners rejected the traditional concept of Kulturträgertum — the spreading of German culture among ‘ backward’ peoples — in favour of the narrow, ideologically conditioned, and economically buttressed goal of reducing the Unter­ mensch to an illiterate, obedient tool. With iron logic and complete lack of sentimentality, Hitler, Himmler, and Bormann formulated and propagated this goal. And, as in other fields, there were groups who for a variety of reasons failed to accept official policy and sought to ignore, circumvent, or subvert it. The fanatics’ programme remained almost entirely on paper; military events and conditions in the occupied areas frustrated its fulfilment. Yet the goals themselves remain as a monument to the long-range plans of the Nazi leadership and to its utter indifference to their political impact on the indigenous population. The field of health and sanitation provided the acid test of the Nazi outlook. When the Army arrived in the East, it quite naturally sought to restore sanitary facilities and encouraged the municipali­ ties to repair sewers and public baths. If nothing else, the prevention of epidemics made systematic sanitation imperative. The most elementary self-interest commanded the maintenance and develop­ ment of medical facilities. Usually even the supercilious officer who viewed the peasants as backward and lice-ridden inferiors smugly considered himself the bearer of a better, cleaner way of life. Here was the ‘ white man’s burden’ in a new and more perverted variant. Each level of the German administrative machinery — in military and civilian areas alike — had its sections on public health and veterinary services. Within war-time limitations, these offices often did everything they could. Detailed directives were issued on the prevention of diseases, garbage disposal, cesspools, and drinking 454

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Kultur and the Untermensch

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water. Indigenous physicians were enrolled for medical service. The tasks were difficult, but frequently they provided an area in which German and indigenous specialists could collaborate in a wholesome atmosphere, even though handicapped by a lack of personnel and supplies.1 Little could they know that their efforts ran counter to the avowed objectives of the Nazi leadership — objectives which were never explicitly announced to them. The first statement revealing Hitler’s own attitude is contained in a conversation which took place in early 1942. Incensed by the ‘ errors’ in German colonialism, he complained : No sooner do we land in a colony than we install children’s creches, hospitals for the natives. All this fills me with rage. . . . The Russians don’t grow old. They scarcely get beyond fifty or sixty. What a ridiculous idea to vaccinate them ! . . . No vaccination for the Russians, and no soap to get the dirt off them. But let them have all the vodka and tobacco they want.123 That these almost accidental remarks were more than an unreasoned outburst was shown two months later when the Führer commented at greater length on hygiene in the occupied regions : We could have no interest in transmitting our knowledge to the subject peoples, thereby providing it with a basis for a tremendous increase in population, which from our point of view is utterly undesirable. He [Hitler] therefore forbade public sanitation activities in these territories. Likewise, compulsory inoculation shall be for Germans only. German doctors are to be employed to treat only Germans. . . .-1 Though these pronouncements have an air of unreality, they matched Hitler’s values perfectly. As he himself summed it up, ‘ it really does not matter to us whether they wash and sweep their houses daily ; we are not their overseers; all we are there for is to promote our own interests’.4 Martin Bormann assiduously poured oil on the fire. In July 1942, when Hitler’s field headquarters was in the vicinity of Vin­ nitsa, Bormann made a trip through the neighbouring Ukrainian 1 See also Dr. Waegner, ‘ Probleme der Gesundheitsführung’, Probleme des (Berlin : RMfdbO., 1942), pp. 59-62. 2 HTT, p. 319, and Harry Picker, ed., H itlers Tischgespräche (Bonn : AthenäumVerlag, 1951), pp. 50-1 (entry for February 19, 1942). 3 Picker, op. cit . pp. 71-4 ; HTT, p. 425 (entry for April 11, 1942). Almost as an afterthought, he added with peculiar ‘ generosity' : ‘ It is likewise nonsense to wish to thrust happiness upon the subject tribes with our knowledge of dentistry. However, one should proceed intelligently. If therefore a man needing dental care should insist on seeing a dentist, well, one should once in a while make an exception, too.' 4 HTT, p. 575 (entry for July 9, 1942). Ostraumes

Problems and Practice

456

i'T. IU

villages. Conditioned by cliches and Hitler’s ipse dixit, he was astounded and frightened at the sight of ‘ blond and blue-eyed’ , ‘ pleasant’ Ukrainian children. ‘ This abundance of children may some day make trouble for us’, he later remarked. These were the descendants of a ‘ race’ which seemed healthier than the Germans — no glasses or artificial dentures in evidence, and the number of children appeared greater than in the Reich. Bormann attributed all this to the fact that the present population was made up of those who had survived the hardships to which the people had been exposed. These ‘ so-called Ukrainians’ (Bormann never recognized them as a bona-fide nationality, much to Rosenberg’s chagrin) ‘ lived in dirt and filth and drank incredibly [polluted] water from their wells and rivers and yet remained healthy to the bone.’ The Ger­ mans took atabrine daily to avoid contracting malaria; yet, concluded Bormann, the natives were immune to it and to spotted fever also. It was not in Germany’s interest that the Russians continue to m ultiply; some day, their procreation might prove dangerous for the Reich. On the contrary, Germany was obliged to prevent their growth, for ‘ one day we want this whole land to be German-settled’ . Hitler replied approvingly, reiterating what he had said earlier: all ‘ preventive medical measures’ were ‘ out of the question’ for the non-German population. In addition, he cynically prescribed that in the East ‘ one shall therefore spread the superstition among them that inoculations, etc., are quite a dangerous business’. A paper had reached Hitler’s desk advising a ban on the sale of contraceptives in the East. According to some Nazis, contraceptive devices and abortive techniques were evidence of a high level of civilization which — like the prerogative of understanding National Socialism — were to be reserved for the Herrenvolk. But Hitler took a determined stand against such dribble : If some idiot should actually try to carry out such a prohibition in the occupied East, he [Hitler] would personally shoot him to pieces. In the occupied Eastern territories, a brisk trade in contraceptives shall not only be permitted but even encouraged, for one could have no interest in the excessive multiplication of the non-German population.1 Usually Hitler’s private table talk led to no immediate action, being more or less off the record. But this time Bormann seized upon his words and the very next day sent Rosenberg a personal topsecret directive, which began: ‘ The Führer wishes me to com­ municate to you as an assignment the observance of the following principles in the occupied Eastern territories’. Then followed eight 1 Picker,

op. cit.

pp. 114-16 ; HTT, pp. 587-9 (entry for July 22, 1942).

oh

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Kultur and the Untermensch

457

points which bluntly restated the conversation of the previous evening.1 The wording of the message indicates that it was based on the transcript of the previous evening’s conversation, and the urgency with which Bormann transacted the whole matter was an indication of his real self, which he usually managed to conceal so well. Rosenberg’s Ministry had carefully walked a tightrope of oblivi­ ous non-commitment, avoiding public reference to all the ticklish aspects of the hygiene problem.12 Now, faced with the Bormann bombshell, the OMi found itself in an uproar. It could no longer look the other way. Rosenberg replied evasively that instructions not to support the multiplication of the Ukrainian population had been issued the previous year; sanitary measures, on the other hand, were needed to prevent epidemics that might also affect German personnel.3 Some of his staff wrote indignant memoranda, opining that a phrase like ‘ brisk trade in contraceptives’ had better not be mentioned in connection with the Fiihrer’s name.4 But Hitler repeated his wish that the Ostministerium would not introduce our laws against contraception. There are plenty of other things with which our busybody officials can occupy their time ; and thank God I shall not live to see them at it. If I did, I might regret ever having captured the country ! 5 Rosenberg’s staff sought to evade the directives. It found some solace in the fact that it was not called upon to apply them. It was up to Erich Koch to become the spokesman and activator of this 1 They began as follows : (1) If women and girls in the occupied Eastern territories engage in abortion, this can only suit us ; thus, in no case shall German jurists object to it. According to the Führer, one shall even permit a brisk trade in contraceptives in the occupied Eastern territories ; for we could have no interest whatsoever in having the non-German population increase in numbers. (2) The danger that the non-German population in the occupied Eastern territories will multiply more than heretofore is very great, for the totality of living conditions is much better and more assured for the non-German popu­ lation. It is precisely for this reason that we must take the necessary pre­ cautionary measures against an increase of the non-German population. (3) For this reason, German public health services shall under no circum­ stances be established in the occupied Eastern territories. For instance, inocula­ tion of the non-German population and similar preventive medical measures are under all circumstances out of the question. . . . (Bormann to Rosenberg, July 23, 1942, Document NO-18781* [also 1648-PS*].) 2 For the official directives of the Rosenberg Ministry and the twro Reich Commissariats on the prevention of epidemics, registration of diseases, and compul­ sory service of medical personnel in the occupied areas, see Meyer, Recht, sections O i C1-9 and U i Ci-17 ; also TMWC, xxvi, 606. 3 Rosenberg, ‘ Meldung an den Führer’, August 11, 1942, Document 042-PS1*. 4 Markull, ‘ Zum Bormann-Brief \ August 19, 1942, Document R-36#. 5 HTT, p. 615 (entry for August 5, 1942).

458

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

doctrine. Even after Stalingrad, Koch, as always conscious of the ultimate goal of Germanization, told a group of visiting journalists that Ukrainian fertility remained a grave danger. ‘ The biological power of the Ukrainians’ , he declared, ‘ could be stopped by feeding them as much makhorka [low-grade tobacco] and vodka as possible.’ The newsman who reported the statement to Goebbels added that population figures kept rising because pregnancy provided the only legal way out of deportation as forced labour to the Reich. He seriously doubted whether, in view of the high morals of the popu­ lation, the attainment of ‘ degeneration by promiscuity’ could ever succeed.1 The official programme remained unaltered even when the hopes for early victory were shattered. There is nothing to indicate that its authors later rued their stand. Utterly oblivious to the values and aspirations of a Soviet-trained generation which by and large accepted medical and social services as axiomatic, the fanatics fashioned a programme that even their most faithful followers could not carry out. Knowledge fo r What? In education, Nazi policy faced a similar, if somewhat less dramatic, dichotomy between the pronouncements of the leadership and the adjustments on the spot. Hitler’s views were once again clear-cut and extreme. Because it was potentially dangerous, ‘ education’ in the East was to be reduced to the barest minimum. ‘ It would be a mistake to claim to educate the native’, Hitler de­ clared. ‘ All that we could give him would be a half-knowledge — just what is needed to conduct a revolution.’ 2 His deep-seated fear of popular enmity led him to propound a ban on education, especially in the social sciences and liberal arts; only music and primitive pageantry were sufficiently innocuous forms of expression to be permitted. Hitler’s formula was simple : ‘ By means of radio the com­ munity would be given whatever is wholesome for i t ; music in unlimited quantity’. ‘ Brain work’ was out, for it would merely produce the ‘ most determined enemy’ of the Reich.3 Later Hitler was even more explicit; his main obsession was to frustrate any effort on the part of the subject peoples to ‘ organize’ . 1 Hans-Joachim Kausch, ‘ Bericht über die Reise’, June 26, 1943, Document Occ E4-11* YIVO. 2 HTT, p. 33 (entry for September 17, 1941). 3 Picker, op. cit. p. 50. The second version of the table talk (HTT, p. 354), reporting substantially the same remarks, places the date (probably more correctly) at March 3, 1942 ; the German text gives February 3.

CH. XXT

Kultur and the Untermensch

459

Therefore [he declared] we don’t want a horde of schoolmasters to descend suddenly on these territories and force education down the throats of the subject races. To teach the Russians, Ukrainians, and Kirghizs to read and write will eventually be to our own disadvantage ; education will give the more intelligent among them an opportunity to study history, to acquire a historical sense, and hence to develop political ideas which cannot but be harmful to our interests.1 Furthermore, education was dangerous because it developed a ‘ consciousness of being their own masters’. To breed such a feeling would be to invite ‘ future resistance to our rule’ . Under the circumstances, the curriculum which Hitler permitted for the East was a tragic farce. At the most, one must let them learn not more than the meaning of road signs. Instruction in geography can be restricted to one single sentence : the capital of the Reich is Berlin, a city which everyone should try to visit once in his lifetime. . . . Mathematics and such like are quite unnecessary.12 This extreme reversal of Kultur trägerturn stemmed not merely from scorn but from insecurity. The fear of the Untermensch over­ shadowed Hitler’s faith in victory, and it seems never to have occurred to him that education could have functions other than the imple­ mentation of political goals. On the question of schooling Rosenberg surrendered to the extremists. Even before the invasion began, he had decreed in a fit of ‘ toughness ’ that ‘ in general there is no special reason to put the school system back into operation with speed, so long as there are more urgent tasks’ .3 Soon after the attack he directed somewhat ambiguously that even in the favoured Ukraine, ‘ schools are authorized [only] on the lowest level. Further measures shall be adopted as the situation develops.’ 4 By December 1941 the situation seemed to have ‘ developed’ sufficiently for him to issue another radical directive which echoed the Hitler thesis : all students above the fourth grade — in elementary, secondary, and higher schools 1 HTT, pp. 424-5 ; Picker, op. cit. pp. 72-3 (entry for April n , 1942). 2 On one occasion the Führer even went so far as to abandon this primitive utilitarianism and to insist that ‘ Jodi is quite right when he says that notices in the Ukrainian language “ Beware of the Trains“ are superfluous : what on earth does it matter if one or two natives get run over by trains ?* (HTT, pp. 69, 588-9 ; Picker, op. cit . p. 116.) 3 Rosenberg, memorandum, n.d., Document 1056-PS, TMWC, xxvi, 608. See also Scheidt, ‘ Kulturpolitische Aufgaben in den besetzten Ostgebieten*, Probleme des Ostraumes, pp. 119-20, 127. 4 RMfdbO., ‘ Richtlinien für die der Ukraine gegenüber zu verfolgende Politik*, n.d. [November 22, 1941]*.

460

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

alike — were ‘ to be released and otherwise employed’.1 T o be sure, he obtained consent for the prompt and fairly complete re­ opening of schools in the Baltic region; and, quite naturally, in the Ukraine and Belorussia, instruction was, wherever possible, to be conducted in the native language rather than in Russian.2 Otherwise, his directives, for once, were perfectly suited to Erich Koch’s demands. In January 1942 the R K U gladly complied : School instruction in the non-German schools may be authorized, beginning February 1, 1942, for the lowest four grades of elementary schools for pupils up to eleven years of age.3 Thus, when Bormann wrote Rosenberg in Ju ly 1942 that Hitler wanted the Easterners — ‘ and this includes the so-called Ukrainians, too’ — only to ‘ learn how to read and write’, the Ostminister could honestly reply that this was precisely what was being done. Em­ boldened by his growing support from Bormann, Koch now spread the word more frankly among his associates that, to his way of thinking, even a three-grade school system ‘ produces too high a standard of education’, since the general level of knowledge was to be ‘ kept down’. At the same time, Koch attacked the Ostminister for ‘ furthering Ukrainian culture’, and for ordering the printing of text-books which he refused to issue.4 Thus, without particular regret, Koch announced during the winter of 1942-3 that ‘ for lack of fuel’ even the first four grades were to be closed ‘ temporarily’ in several districts under his cpmmand. The school structure ground to a standstill. Though some elementary education continued, the impression created, both among the population and among German officialdom, was disastrous. Even Rosenberg, already engaged in his bitter exchanges with Koch, now came around to opposing Koch’s closing of schools as a betrayal of German political objectives. But Koch refused to budge.5 1 RMfdbO., directive, December 12, 1941, RKU, Zen tralblatt , i (1942), 147. The same decree also barred the use of Soviet textbooks and the employment of former Communists as teachers. It did not apply to the Baltic areas. 2 Ministerialrat Kienzlen, affidavit, Document Berger-34*. For the organiza­ tion of the education sections in the civil administration, see Scheidt, op. cit. pp. 120, 128 ; and Document 1056-PS, TMWC, xxvi, 593-4. 3 Koch, circular, January 12, 1942, RKU, Zehtralblatty i (1942), 147. 4 Document NO- i 878* ; Koch, speech, August 26-28, 1942, paraphrase, Document NG-2720*. Actually, four-grade elementary schools continued in the RKU for some time (Koch, decrees of August 15 and 31, 1942, not published in the official gazette of the RKU, but cited in Koch, circular, March 7, 1943, Document Occ E 18-19*, YIVO, and in Koch to Rosenberg, March 17, 1943, Document 192-PS, TMWC, xxv, 276 ; Hadamowsky and Taubert, ‘ Bericht über die Propa­ ganda-Lage im Osten’, September 17, 1942, Document Occ E 18-19*, YIVO, p. 19). 5 Interviews G-9, G-13. On the Koch-Rosenberg feud, see above, Chapters VII-VIII.

CH. X X I

Kultur and the Untermensch

461

Koch held all the trumps : control of the situation on the spot as well as support from the very top. In his conference with the Führer in May 1943, Rosenberg suffered another setback. As Bormann noted after the meeting, Hitler’s opinion was unshaken : Excessive education must be prevented. . . . Again and again history proves that people who have more education than their job requires become pioneers of revolutionary movements. It is more important that an intelligent Ukrainian woman makes fuses in Germany than that she study in the Ukraine.1 Rosenberg once again occupied the ineffectual middle position between two consistent extremes. While Koch and Bormann sought to enforce their stand, many military government officers tried to follow a policy of expanding and encouraging the local schools, and there were elements in Berlin (notably in the O KH and the RusslandGremium) that endorsed these attempts. It is true that the Army had a dual problem in this area. On the one hand, its military government officers were supposed to follow the directives of the Ostministerium on education; on the other hand, to the difficulties fabricated by the occupying powers were added the objective problems which hindered the reconstruction of the school system. These problems were substantial in themselves. Soviet education and mobilization had removed a large part of the intelligentsia. School buildings were often destroyed or requisi­ tioned, and supplies were lacking. Soviet textbooks had to be replaced with new materials, teachers had to be screened and trained, and all this at a time of chaos, of concern with ‘ more essential matters’ , and of a shortage of manpower, equipment, and clear policy directives. Army attitudes and practice in school affairs varied considerably. In some parts of the northern and central areas of occupation, the schools were reopened in the fall of 1941, while the south was governed by the same directives as the civilian-ruled Ukraine : only the lowest four grades were permitted, with the curriculum restricted to reading, writing, arithmetic, calisthenics, and needlework. During the first year, instruction in all areas was by and large rudimentary and poor. By the fall of 1942, some improvement was noticeable. In the area of Army Group Centre, for instance, some 1200 schools were in operation — still far fewer than necessary to accommo­ date all children of school age. In many army-ruled districts, the schools were now expanded from four to seven grades— just as Koch was reducing or abolishing his four-class system. Some further 1 Hewel to Ribbentrop, May 24, 1943, Document NG-3288*. G.R.R.— 2 H

462

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

improvement took place in 1943, but by then the armies were in retreat and the areas under their jurisdiction were contracting.1 While the actual accomplishments were thus meagre and spotty, the basic attitude of the responsible military government officers was entirely different from that of the civil administrators. At the December 1942 conference in Berlin they made a typical protest against the effects of official policy : The closing of schools, the prohibitions against studying the German language have provoked boundless disappointment among the population. They feel treated like a colonial people. The shortage of skilled specialists, which must soon set in, will make itself felt in the future.2 The suppression of schooling was indeed a measure of most serious impact on popular attitudes in the occupied areas. It was amply exploited by Soviet propaganda as evidence of German intentions. In practice, the absence of schools encouraged juvenile delinquency and a flight of youth to the partisans; and the un­ employment (and strikingly low salaries) of many teachers alienated precisely those who had started out with some faith in the New Order.3 Higher and Special Education It was obvious that if secondary education was not permitted in the East, no universities with an ‘ academic’ programme would be tolerated. Indeed, Hitler stressed repeatedly the ‘ danger’ of training intellectuals. As the final report of the Military Government Section of Army Group Centre stated, perhaps with tongue in cheek : The Reich agencies responsible for public education policies felt that it was not desirable to establish an extensive secondary and higher educa­ tion system. It was intended to prevent the growth of a strong intelli­ gentsia which could jeopardize the German claim to leadership. It was also believed that [university students] were still too strongly enured to the Communist way of life. . . . Finally, it was feared that an extensive system [of higher education] would result in an exodus of youth from jobs essential for the prosecution of the war.4 1 Lt. [Gottlieb] Leibbrandt, ‘ Bericht Nr. 8 ’, November 1941, Document NG-4435* ; Müller, op. cit. ; Heeresgruppe Süd, Abt. VII, ‘ Besondere Anord­ nung Nr. 27’, November 18, 1941* ; interview G-3 ; Peter Kleist, Zwischen H itler und S ta lin (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), pp. 181-2. 2 Protocol, December 18, 1942. 3 On German awareness of these facts, see also Von Weichs, ‘ Facts and Opinions’, MS*, 1945, HL ; [Herwarth,] ‘ Deutschland und die ukrainische Frage, 1941-1945’, MS*. 4 Heeresgebiet ‘ A ’, ‘ Abschlussbericht über die Tätigkeit der Militärver­ waltung’, 1944 [hereafter cited as ‘ Abschlussbericht’], HGeb 75156/1*, CRS, pp. 150-1.

at .xxi

Kultur and the Untermensch

463

Rosenberg had written off cultural and educational activities, even in pre-invasion plans, as ‘ not so urgent as political, economic, and legal problems’. None the less he had stressed, in obvious harmony with his general philosophy, that one of the necessary tasks in the East was ‘ the furtherance of all national science and history, writings and universities in those areas which correspond to [German] political goals’.1 Among the targets into which national conscious­ ness was to be pumped, the universities rated high. Thus ‘ one must establish a great university in Kiev and corresponding universities and technical schools throughout the rest [of the Ukraine]’.12 He must have known that these plans were in conflict with those of the Führer. To head off a show-down, he first ordered his subordinates to await ‘ further directives’ on the subject, but he soon surrendered to the extremists : he did not choose to fight over education except when his prestige was at stake. After an interview with Hitler, who expressed his opposition unmistakably, the Ostminister meekly recorded his agreement that this was not the time to discuss universities in the Ukraine, ‘ in view of the general situation and the destruction brought about by the Bolsheviks, above all in K iev’ .3 The volte-face was easily effected. Hitler, meanwhile, remained firm in his views. As he commented a few months later, ‘ If we had acted according to the logic of our schoolmasters, our first step [would have been] to establish a university in K iev’.4 Rosenberg was scornfully classed among this despised genus of ‘ schoolmasters’. Rosenberg backed down even further. When a few of the surviving faculty members of Kiev University had been compro­ mised by their co-operation with the extreme Ukrainian nationalists, Rosenberg ordered on January 21, 1942 : All institutions of higher learning in the Reich Commissariat Ukraine are to be closed until further notice. . . . Exceptions are to be made only for the medical, veterinary, agricultural, forestry, and technical faculties.5 Academic work in the Ukraine was never resumed under German rule. That such a policy was to Koch’s liking is self-evident. He 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Allgemeiner Aufbau und Aufgaben einer Dienststelle für die zentrale Bearbeitung der Fragen des osteuropäischen Raum es’, April 29, 19 41, Document 1024-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 564. 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar in der Ukraine’, M ay 7, 19 41, Document 1028-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 568. ’ Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über eine Besprechung beim Führer am 19. September 1941 ’ , October 2, 1941, E A P 99 /110 *, C R S , p. 4. 4 Picker, op. dt. p. 50. 5 RMfdbO., decree, January 21, 1942, and R K U , circular, February 4, 1942, R K U , Zentralblatt, i (1942), 148-9. In striking contrast to German policy, even the Rumanians in Odessa permitted the reopening of the university.

464

Problems and Practice

l ' T. HI

admitted frankly and proudly that it was his aim to decimate the Ukrainian intelligentsia. He minced no words in informing his subordinates in a widely circulated directive that ‘ it is more im­ portant today to [have the population] work in Germany for victory than to fill the universities, schools, and institutes in the cities’.1 Actually, Rosenberg and his aides never fully renounced their Ukrainian schemes, and when the struggle with Koch flared up in 1942-3, the question of universities and special training schools became one of the issues in their clash. In practice, some semblance of a Ukrainian adult education system — a revival of the old Prosvita — enjoyed a semi-legal existence.2 And, under pressure, Koch by 1943 had come around to sanctioning some strictly ‘ applied’ short-range research in fields like reclamation of swamps, geological surveying, and breeding of rubber plants.3 To the end, however, no higher education existed in the humanities and social sciences. Throughout these controversies, the Baltic regions occupied a special position. Here, as planned from the outset, ‘ speedy re­ sumption of school instruction [was] aimed at, to the extent that suitable and reliable teachers are available’ .4 Compared with the areas farther south, it was pathetic how small an effort sufficed to eliminate a major source of grievance. A special book appeared on universities in Ostland, and Lohse himself wrote proudly of the reopening of institutions of higher learning.5 However, even here, some change of policy occurred when the German authorities (much to the triumph of the Koch sympathizers) discovered that the universities were becoming hearths of clandestine anti-German movements. In spite of this, however, educational and cultural life in the Baltic states remained to the end on a far higher plane than in the old Soviet areas.6 In Belorussia, under the influence of nationalist circles, an attempt was made to create a focus for intellectual collaborators. First instituted in the summer of 1942, then defunct, and again revived in June 1943, a Belorussian Scientific Society operated fitfully under the honorary chairmanship of Generalkommissar 1 Hadamowsky and Taubert, op . cit. p. 19 ; R K U , circular, February 20, 1943*. 2 See John A . Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism , J9 3 9 -J9 4 5 (New York : Columbia University Press, 1955), pp. 223-7. 1 See, for instance, R K U , Zentralblatt, ii (1943), m - 1 3 , H 7, 229, 549. 4 Document 1056-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 608. 5 Lohse, ‘ Ostland baut au f’ , Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), xiii (January 1942), p. 37 ; Kurt Stegmann, D ie Hochschulen im Ostland zwischen gestern und morgen (Riga : Ostland-Verlag, 1943). 6 See above, p. 191 ; also Ants Oras, B altic Eclipse (London : Gollancz, 1948) ; and RM fdbO., Propaganda-Dienst, no. 3 (August 27, 1942), p. 7.

CU. XXI

Kultur and the Untermensch

465

Kube. Though indicative of Kube’s slightly more imaginative flexibility, the society was a sham.1 In military areas, no full-fledged universities were reopened, but a number of institutes and research bodies resumed work under modest circumstances in such places as Khar’kov, Mogilev, Simfero­ pol’, and Smolensk. Even here the work was either in the training of elementary-school teachers or in such narrowly circumscribed fields of ‘ applied’ research as chemical technology, serology, or agronomy. Expediency was king.

While the ban on higher education was the logical corollary of the fear of breeding a hostile indigenous intelligentsia, the ‘ trafficsign’ philosophy dictated the furtherance of rudimentary vocational training. Unlike the ‘ academic’ curriculum, trade schools were palatable — both because Nazi policy fostered the artisan class at the expense of heavy industry and brainwork in the East, and because war-time Germany stood to benefit from the availability of skilled labour. Indeed, as early as the fall of 1941, a series of directives provided for the creation of craft schools and vocational schools in agriculture and forestry. A year later, the military government areas were to institute a three-year technical training programme for such trades as blacksmith, carpenter, locksmith, mechanic, and bricklayer, open to graduates of the four-year elementary school.2 Erich Koch initially opposed this training, even in the purely practical fields. Although he tolerated some such schools in his realm, he made it clear that they were not to his liking : Were they not operating at a time when German youth was feeling the pinch at home ? Whatever the limits of the curriculum, could they not become foci of opposition ? Above all, were they not havens for shirkers and labour draft-dodgers ? After simmering for some time, the dispute burst into the open in October 1942, when Koch ordered trade schools in the Ukraine closed down.3 The ensuing controversy became a part of the general Rosenberg-Koch duel. In December the Ostminister 1 Ostland (Riga), ii, no. 2 (August 1943), p. 30 ; Sipo und S D Ostland, ‘ Ereig­ nismeldungen’ , August 6, 1942, Document Occ £ 3 - 3 * , Y IV O ; interview H-800. It was to carry out 4(i) tasks of immediate importance for the war ; (2) work that would serve the long-range development of the country ; (3) basic research of a purely scientific, theoretical nature*. See also 4Weissruthenische wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft’ , Minsker Zeitung, March 25, 1944. 2 Heeresgebiet Mitte, Abt. V II, 4Verwaltungsanordnung Nr. 2 5 ’, August 2, 1942, HGrM itte, 3 14 9 1/6 * , C R S , pp. 1 1 - 1 2 . J See Riecke to Rosenberg, March 30, 1943, Document Rosenberg-T9, T M W C , xli, 196.

466

Problems and Practice

PT. H I

instructed him to superimpose on the four-grade elementary schools, a network of vocational schools for drivers, veterinarians, geologists, and agronomists, for ‘ the German administration needs forces which the German people is in no position to furnish’ . Moreover, such a system would ‘ take the Ukrainian youth off the streets and give it a feeling of contributing to the reconstruction of its country’. 1 When Koch ignored the directive, Rosenberg went over his head, and on February 23, 1943, ordered the General Commissars directly to reopen the schools. Koch countered with a circular which as much as voided Rosenberg’s directive. Rosenberg, how­ ever, suspended the Koch circular and requested immediate execu­ tion of his own decree.2 The fight was at red heat. Berlin argued for a system including a preparatory trade school, a regular trade school, and two levels of advanced vocational training; Koch insisted that these were ‘ not essential’. In the end, however, he had to yield ground. Even in terms of his own programme, his position was difficult to defend : if one of his major tasks was to increase the harvest, it made sense to train specialists in agriculture ; if artisans were needed, one had to train carpenters and blacksmiths. The thing Koch insisted upon to the end was the maintenance of all such training on a low, strictly non-political level. In the summer of 1943 he finally authorized the training of indigenous agricultural specialists, reluctantly admitting the cogency of the argument: ‘ The German agricultural leadership [in the Ukraine] needs skilled natives for the execution of its tasks. The training hitherto available does not satisfy German requirements.’ Soon an intricate system, patterned on that operating in the army areas, was established, with the traditional German stages of apprenticeship, assistantship, mastery and with examinations at each stage.3 In practice, the German retreat made its application impossible. The Letter and the Spirit What language was to be spoken in the East ? Since most of the Eastern peoples were deemed ineligible for Germanization, the dogmatists argued that they were unworthy of learning German, and if they mastered it, would use it only for political advantage. The pragmatists, on the other hand, insisted that the task of dealing with the Easterners would be immeasurably eased if they all under­ stood German. And the old-style imperialists claimed that the ' R o s e n b e r g to K o c h , D e c e m b e r 1 4 , 1 9 4 3 , D o c u m e n t 1 9 4 - P S * . c irc u la r , M a r c h 7 , 1 9 4 3 , a n d R o s e n b e r g , d ir e c tiv e , M a r c h 1 6 , 1 9 4 3 , D o cu m en t O cc E 1 8 - 1 9 * , Y I V O ; and D o cu m en t 1 9 2 - P S , T M W C , x x v , 2 7 6 . 3 R K U , c irc u la r , A u g u s t 1 , 1 9 4 3 , R K U , Zentralblatt, ii ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 5 4 9 - 5 0 .

2 K och ,

CH. xxi

Kultur and the Untermensch

467

teaching of German conferred the benefits of advanced culture on the boors of the East, and that in so doing the Reich was fulfilling its manifest destiny. Hitler’s attitude sprang from his plumb-line of reducing all nonessential contact between Germans and ‘ natives’ to a minimum. One facet of this non-fraternization policy was the order discouraging German officials from learning Russian or Ukrainian, allegedly ‘ based on the Fiihrer’s plan to rotate all political officials [stationed in the East] every five years’. In practice, the order, if it was ever put on paper, was not taken seriously, for almost all agencies active in the occupied areas trained at least lower-level personnel in the indigenous languages. On other occasions, Hitler expressed a willingness to let the Eastern population learn ‘ to read and write a little German’, adding quickly that this was ‘ merely in order to facilitate the German administration’ there.1 The Rosenberg Ministry quite characteristically toyed with a differentiation of policies according to the area involved. Whether the German language was introduced ‘ depended on the political goals in the several commissariats’. In the Baltic region, the people would be taught German as a prerequisite to Germanization. In Belorussia, it would suffice to teach German to the ‘ best elements’ and to those needing it for official or business relations. In the Caucasus, the goal would be to ‘ maintain the many native languages in all their variety’, while permitting those who so wished to learn German. Finally, in the Ukraine, the great task of uprooting the Russian influence could best be furthered by fostering the Ukrainian language ; hence there was no ‘ need ’ for German ever to become the language of the whole people, though all officials and persons in higher schools and public standing would be expected to speak German.12 The plan matched the Ostministerium’s broader political aims for each satrapy in the East. It could be assumed that the Great Russians were not to learn German at all. In practice, German was introduced widely in the Baltikum : there was no conflict here between the programme of the Germanizers, the divide-et-impera advocates, and the old Kulturträger.3 Not unnaturally, similar efforts were made in the areas under military jurisdiction : officers who by bitter experience had learned the 1 K a u s c h , op. cit. ; P ic k e r, op. cit. p p . 1 1 6 - 1 7 , a n d H T T , p . 5 8 9 ( e n tr y fo r Ju ly 2 2 , 19 4 2). 2 [ R M f d b O . , ] ‘ D i e d e u ts c h e S p r a c h e in d e n b e se tzte n O s t g e b ie t e n ’ , J u l y 2 9 , 19 4 1 , D ocum ent I 0 4 8 -P S * . 3 L o h s e w r o te w it h sa tisfa c tio n th a t ‘ G e r m a n w ill r a p id ly re s u m e th e p o sitio n w h ic h it is d u e as a w o r ld la n g u a g e a n d as th e le a d in g la n g u a g e o f th e B a ltic s p a c e ’ . ( L o h s e , ‘ O s tla n d b a u t a u f ’ , op. cit. p . 3 7 . )

468

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

problems of getting along with an alien people, assumed that there could be no objection to teaching them German.1 In the Ukraine, however, Koch insisted that there were more urgent and politically less objectionable tasks at hand, and that popular knowledge of German would expose the occupation personnel to greater hazards and temptations. He therefore ordered that ‘ in the elementary schools, the German language is not to be taught to the native population’.2 Thus Rosenberg’s plans were once again subject to an ironical sh ift: on Great Russian soil, where he had barred it, German was being taught; in the Ukraine, where he had wanted it, his deputy had denied him. One other source of dissension in Nazi circles was the German alphabet. The introduction of Latin (or German) characters into the East Slavic languages was an old idea that had at different times been espöused by various groups, including some Russians. How­ ever, the sudden substitution of German symbols for the Cyrillic alphabet in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian was a fantastic and impracticable proposition.3 It was naively inconsistent for Hitler and Bormann to favour such a plan, intent as they were on magnifying both the substance and symbols of distinction between ‘ W est’ and ‘ East’. The rationale was the same as for teaching the population ‘ a little’ German : ‘ otherwise every native could get away without carrying out a German directive by claiming that he did not understand it’ . Ridiculous as it was to assume that the use of German characters in the indigenous languages would further the understanding of orders given in the German language, this was the argument used.4 The whole notion seemed imaginative and ‘ radical’. Though the Slavic Institute of Berlin University objected on the contrived pretext that the use of Latin letters would foster pan-Slavism and Catholicism, Bormann incorporated the plan in his directive to Rosenberg in July 1942.5 In his reply, the Ostminister acknowledged that Kube had received orders to this effect. As for the Ukraine, 1 See Walter Engelhardt, Klinzy (Berlin : Nibelungen-Verlag, 1943), P* n 8 ; Müller, op. cit. 2 Koch, ‘ Amtssprachen im R K . Ukraine’ , February 2, 1942, R K U , Zentralblatt, i (1942), 26. 3 In Berlin, it is true, even prior to the second World War, the Nazis had begun publishing the Belorussian newspaper, Ranicaf in an odd phonetic transliteration, partly with the support of ‘ Polish9 Belorussian refugees who were familiar with the Latin alphabet. During the war, however, as the newspaper became an organ for Belorussian labourers and prisoners in Germany, it reverted to Cyrillic : its purpose then was to be read, not to innovate the unreadable. 4 Picker, op. cit. p. 1 1 7 ; H T T , p. 589 (entry for July 22, 1942). 5 Document N O - 18 7 8 * ; and interview G -10 .

CH. X XI

Kultur and the Untermensch

469

Rosenberg, for political reasons, continued to oppose foisting such an incongruous ‘ revolution’ on the people; while, he claimed, ‘ in principle’ such a thing was envisaged, ‘ it is extraordinarily difficult to carry out’ there.1 As usual Koch sided with Bormann and Hitler. He repeatedly objected to the printing of Ukrainian text-books by the Rosenberg offices in ‘ Russian ’ characters — at a time when, as he put it, ‘ the abolition of Cyrillic symbols was in the air’. Soon he proudly arrogated to himself the credit for the impending reform, placing the blame for the delay (and not without some reason) upon the Ostministerium. As late as March 1943 he accused Rosenberg of violating Hitler’s orders by printing books in Cyrillic ‘ even though the introduction of Latin letters will take place in the nearest future’. By hypocritically depicting the move as a means of widening the ‘ conflicts and differences between Ukrainian and Muscovite Volkstum’, Koch incongruously embraced Rosenberg’s arguments. The Ostminister had been beaten at his own game.12 No more was heard of the proposal, for Koch had more urgent matters on his mind. Yet the suggested ‘ reform ’ remains a monument to the utterly unrealistic schemes which preoccupied the Nazi elite. The Fine Arts and the Crude Arts Arts and letters received little attention in German war-time discussions and directives. Berlin had more immediate problems than Russian painting and ballet. Two things were clear, however : what artistic expression there was had to serve either as a non­ political, ‘ safe’ outlet for popular emotions, or else as a medium for German political indoctrination. Hitler ordered the sphere of ‘ native’ cultural activity restricted so as to eliminate all political overtones. If he sanctioned indulgence in music and dance, he did so because of their politically innocuous nature and to permit the sublimation of pent-up emotions by channelling them into inoffensive forms.3 Rosenberg commented similarly that there are no objections to the performance of local songs or of dances in native costumes on such occasions as Thanksgiving Day. One shall like­ wise view other [forms of cultural] expression as a sort of diversion and shall not shut off this safety valve for an otherwise difficult life.4 While these forms were denatured, as it were, and left alone, other cultural media — and especially those involving the spoken word — 1 2 xxvi, ' 4

Document 0 42-P S*. Hadamowsky and Taubert, op. cit. pp. 19-20 ; Document 192-P S, TMWC, 264, 277. Picker, op. cit. p. 73 ; H T T , p. 425 (entry for April 11, 1942), Document 19 4-P S *.

470

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

were placed at the service of political indoctrination. Under the aegis of the Ostministerium, special departments on art and literature were established; Army Propaganda offices and later on the Propaganda Ministry’s units, though few in numbers, were active in the occupied East. Their collective aim was to inculcate anti-Soviet and proGerman sentiments by means of leaflets, posters, newspapers, plays, and films.1 Those forms which were most difficult to infuse with propaganda, such as poetry and belles-lettres, were (with literally a handful of exceptions) ignored. Whether by intent or by default, practice tended to conform with Hitler’s dictum : The radio will be enough to give them [the Easterners] the essential information. Of music, they can have as much as they want. They can practise listening to the tap running. [However,] . . . they must not be entrusted with mental work, and let us by no means permit anything [intellectual ?] to be printed.2 While all solid academic work and art for its own sake withered, the German-held areas were showered with a stream of propaganda which, in terms of popular reactions, proved to be generally crude, inept, or repulsive. Not only the lack of positive appeals, the crude search for scapegoats, and the stylistic poverty defeated its purpose, but above all the gap between harsh reality and the vague, sugarcoated images of the better world which Germany professed to usher in, was too great to permit the slogans to become effective.3 The tenacious adherence, in spite of all setbacks, to long-term goals in Nazi Kulturpolitik perpetuated a policy which was ill1 Actual practice varied substantially. In the Ukraine, many of the best theatre performances were reserved for German officials and often only a few rows were available to the indigenous population. In late 1942 the Kiev opera was closed, not to reopen. (Kausch, op. cit. ; Frauenfeld, ‘ Denkschrift’ , February 10, 1944, Document N O -539 4 *, p. 12.) In Belorussia, on the other hand, a corollary of the Kube policy was the encouragement of Belorussian national plays with antiMuscovite themes — efforts which, paralleled in folk art and music, at times taxed the credulity of the most pro-separatist observer. For Belorussian cultural activities under the Germans, see the files of M insker Zeitung and Belaruskaia H azeta ; Ostland (Riga), i, no. 7 -1 2 ; Vladimir Seduro, The Belorussian Theater and D ram a (New York : Research Program on the U .S .S .R ., 1955), ch. 22. On the Ukraine, see Armstrong, op. cit. pp. 2 2 1-3 5 ; for regulations in Ostland, see also Meyer, R echt, section O i D 2 -2 1. 2 Picker, op. cit. p. 50 ; H T T , p. 354. The Baltic area was decidedly exempt from this policy. 3 On German propaganda, see also above, pp. 57, 66 ; John H. Buchsbaum, ‘ German Psychological Warfare on the Russian Front, 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 5 ’, M S * , O C M H , 19 53 *> RM fdbO ., Richtlinien fü r die Pressezensur in den besetzten Ostgebieten (Berlin, ist ed., January 1943) ; R M fV u P ., Verordnungen , Erlasse und Anweisungen fü r die Propagandaarbeit in den besetzten Ostgebieten (Berlin, 1943-4 ) ; RM fdbO .,

CH. X X I

Kultur and the Untermensch

471

designed to win the good will of the population. Though ignorant of the orders which aimed at reducing them to cultural castrates, the Soviet citizens in the occupied areas could observe the Germans’ supine neglect of those areas of social and cultural life which they valued highly. Perhaps more than in any other area, ‘ accomplish­ ments’ in the fields of medicine, arts, and letters had been accepted, especially by the intelligentsia, as hallmarks of genuine progress and as part of the unquestioned rights of man. The Soviet retreat had brought in its wake a giant vacuum in cultural activities and public communications. In a population enured to saturation with educa­ tional, cultural, and news opportunities — however distorted and inferior — the new situation was bound to produce an awareness of deterioration and a thirst for information. While Nazi cultural policy had its effect on every social class, the intellectuals, most of whom were deprived of their material and moral base as a result of the occupation, reacted most violently to it. If, at first, more vital issues occupied the popular mind, a sense of keen disappointment quickly set in. As a German report stated in retrospect, During the early phase [of the occupation] when there were more urgent tasks to handle, the population accepted the neglect of public education as a result of military necessities. However, later on, when public schools were neglected, the people sought reasons and made com­ parisons with the more favourable conditions that had prevailed under the Bolsheviks, for the Soviets had paid particular attention to education and had expanded educational facilities in order to improve the media for the dissemination and teaching of their own creed.1 The comparison was inevitably unfavourable to the Germans. There were elements in the attitudes and values of the intel­ ligentsia that would have lent themselves to effective exploitation by an anti-Soviet movement. The support of these intellectuals would have been essential for the formation of new native cadres of leader­ ship and a non-Communist elite in intellect and culture. Yet the emergence of such a stratum was precisely what Berlin feared. Afraid of rearing its own enemies, Germany failed to support the most articulate enemies of Bolshevism. Indeed, it rebuffed what elements were initially prone to adjust and acclaim the new as a better order. The loss the Reich sustained as a result was of its own making. Propaganda-Dienst (Berlin, 1942-4) ; ‘ Lagebericht über Ostpropaganda’, April 18, 1942, Document Occ E 1 5 -1 6 * , Y IV O ; Hadamowsky and Taubert, op. cit. ; R M fV u P ., Lagerverzeichnis Ostpropaganda (Berlin, 1943-4). 1 ‘ Abschlussbericht’ , pp. 15 1-2 .

CHAPTKK XXII

THE CHURCH:

L E V E R OR C H A L L E N G E ?

If each village has its own sect . . . we could only welcome this because it would increase the number of divisive elements in the Russian space.—A d o lf H it ler

Nazism and Christianity I n spite of a generation of Communist persecution, the religious question was still a sore on the body politic of the Soviet Union when the German armies struck.1 Religion could have ofFered the invader one more lever for exploiting existing tensions and grievances. Nazi conduct, balancing between long-term goals and short-term adjustments, was incapable of recognizing the available opportunities. Whatever their many differences, Hitler and Rosenberg agreed thoroughly on religious matters. Though frequently muting its anti-Christian stand, Nazism officially fostered the revival of heathen Germanic antiquity and a devout reverence for Party, Leader, and State. Rosenberg, Bormann, and Hitler were all extremists in this regard.12 Rosenberg had declared that the idea of honour — national honour — is for us the beginning and end of our entire thinking and doing. It does not admit of any equivalent centre of power alongside it [such as] Christian love. . . .34 And shortly before the attack on Russia, Bormann restated his views in a letter to Rosenberg : The concepts of National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable. . . . Our National Socialist ideology is far loftier than the tenets of Christianity which, in their essential points, have been taken over from Judaism. For this reason alone, we do not need Christianity.* 1 On the background of Soviet religious policy, see Nicholas Timasheff, Religion in Soviet Russia (New York : Dutton, 1942), and John S. Curtiss, The Russian Church and the Soviet State (Boston : Little, Brown, 1953). 2 There is still no satisfactory monograph on Nazi church policy. For valuable material* see the Lutheran compendium, Heinrich Hermelink, K irche im K a m p f (Tübingen : Wunderlich, 1950) ; and the Catholic volume by Johann Neuhäusler, K reu z und Hakenkreuz (Munich : Katholische Kirche Bayerns, 1946). 3 Rosenberg, D er M ythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Munich : HoheneichenVerlag, 1935), p. 514. 4 Bormann, 'Verhältnis von Nationalsozialismus und Christentum*, June 6, 1941, Document 0 75-D , T M W C , xxv, 9 -13. 472

August Haussleitner, An der mittleren Ostfront (Nürnberg : Schräg, 1942), p. 216 ; Paul Werner, Ein schweizer Journalist sieht Russland (Olten : Walter, 1942), p. 98. A report from the northern sector stated that ‘ the average Russian is still very responsive to religious matters. Churches are being rebuilt by the people and services are widely attended.’ (Lt. [Gottlieb] Leibbrandt, ‘ Bericht Nr. 8 ’ , November 19 41, Document N G -4 4 3 5 *.) See also Harvey Fireside, ‘ The Russian Orthodox Church under German Occupa­ tion in World W ar I I ’ , M S * , Harvard University, 1952, p. 39 ; and ‘ Abschluss­ bericht’, pp. 139 -4 1. One German observer distinguished between different motives for the revival of religious sentiments, notably (1) genuine faith ; (2) a reaction to Soviet conditions ; (3) opportunism. (Interview G -20.) For excellent summaries of trends in religious life, see the semi-annual surveys based on extensive press coverage, Bertold Spuler, ‘ Die orthodoxen Kirchen’ , Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift (Berne), xxxi-xxxiv (19 4 1-4 ). 3 ‘ Abschlussbericht’ , p. 139 ; Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), September 19 41, pp. 1 1 - 1 2 ; Europas Soldaten berichten über die Sowjet-Union (Berlin: Erasmusdruck [1942]), p. 67. 4 On the other hand, there were also considerable difficulties obstructing a revival of religious life. The lack of clergy was critical to the point where

G.R.R.— 2 I

478

Problems and Practice

PT. i n

The key to this positive attitude lay in the realization reached by many officers and men that by supporting and encouraging church services, they could expect a much friendlier attitude from the population. In spite of its limitations, the church was capable of playing an ‘ ordering’ , pacifying role. A year later, the top military government officials from the Northern and Central areas com­ plained that ‘ the attitude of the Church is absolutely positive \i.e. loyally pro-German], but thus far little use has been made of this fact’ . And, at the end of the war, Field-Marshal von Weichs recalled that No move could have helped German propaganda more than the first religious service held in a church [closed or desecrated by the Com­ munists]. It resulted in a rapid improvement of local morale and a greater willingness to make donations to the church. [However, Berlin,] . . . ignoring this fact completely, issued an order shortly after the begin­ ning of the Russian campaign, forbidding soldiers from participating in the rebuilding of churches and prohibiting the conduct of Army services in Ukrainian buildings.1 The Field-Marshal evidently did not know what led the author­ ities to issue such an order. During the first weeks of the campaign, the SS was much annoyed by the help which German Army chaplains gave local churches. After the reopening of Smolensk Cathedral, Heydrich complained that it was not in the Reich’s interest to have Germans help revive religion in the East, and brought the matter to the attention of the OKW and the Rosenberg Ministry. By agree­ ment with Rosenberg, the OKW thereupon barred Army chaplains from participating in the religious life of the civilian population. The Russland-Gremium of the Foreign Office promptly lodged a protest, largely at the insistence of Grosskopf, but in vain. Formally, the political arm dictated to the military.2 Hitler and the Edict of Tolerance In pre-invasion days Rosenberg had toyed with the idea of a bombastic proclamation to the ‘ Eastern masses’, assuring them of lay-priests had to be appointed in a number of areas. German and indigenous complaints about the ‘ low morals * and the avaricious proclivities of the clergy were frequent. Finally, German military units at times engaged in abuses and desecra­ tions. (For a Soviet account, one-sided but apparently factual, see Metropolitan Nicholas, The Russian Orthodox Church and the War Against Fascism [Moscow : Patriarchate of Moscow, 1943], pp. 26-7.) 1 Von Weichs, ‘ Facts and Opinions’ , M S * , 1945, H L ; Protocol, December 18, 1942. 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Aktennotiz für den Führer*, August 22, 19 41, Document 10 5 3 -P S * ; Buchardt, p. 34 ; interview G -3 1 .

cn. xxii

The Church: Lever or Challenge ?

479

German toleration in matters of faith. In the process of drafting policy directives, the idea recurred a number of tim es; in the final versions, however, all references to ‘ a general Edict of Tolerance giving the opportunity to form confessional organizations, but without state support ’, were omitted.1 A year of see-saw negotiations followed, with the ‘ neutralizers’ and ‘ atomizers’ of the church opposing the ‘ harnessers’ and ‘ utilizers’ . As Bräutigam later regretfully wrote, ‘ After months of negotiations, it was decided that religious liberty was . . . as much as possible to be glossed over quietly. Thus the propaganda effect was largely lost’.123 Actually Rosenberg had completed the draft by early 1942 and submitted it to the Führer at their conference on February 15. Curiously, Rosenberg himself pushed for its implementation in Ostland only; in the Ukraine, he maintained, the question needed further study because it would be politically dangerous to sanction one central church there.1 The Ostminister was saved further soul-searching on this matter by Bormann’s intervention. When Rosenberg had finally readied what he deemed a satisfactory decree, its various critics forced a drastic shortening to a mere affirmation of freedom of worship and religious organization. But Bormann, commenting on it at great length, asked Rosenberg in an authoritative tone to plug a variety of minor loopholes he had discovered.4 The next time Rosenberg went to see Hitler the question was to be decided — with Bormann sitting in. Hitler’s own attitude had taken shape by fits and starts. In August 1941 he commented on a report of high church attendance in Ukrainian villages that he ‘ saw no harm in it’ so long as the peasantry itself conducted the service, and not the ‘ Russian clergy’ which would use the church ‘ as a base of departure for pan-Slav activities’. A few days later, however, he voiced the opinion that if 1 The original instructions to the R K U in M ay 1941 had contained this pro­ posal, which in the final version was reduced to mention of ‘ the possibility of religious organizations, without state support*. (Document 10 28-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 57 1, n. 21.) The reference to the Toleranzedikt in another draft, the next day, was entirely omitted. (Document 1030-PS, T M W C , xxvi, 579 and n. 7.) 2 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung*, October 25, 1942, Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxvi, 336. The problem was discussed inconclusively at a conference between Rosenberg and Himmler on November 15, 1941. (Himmler, ‘ Aktennotiz*, November 15, 1941, Document N O -5329 *.) Rosenberg claimed at the Nurem­ berg trial to have issued a ‘ church tolerance* edict at the end of December 1941 (testimony, T M W C , xi, 462) ; there is no evidence to support this assertion. 3 Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über eine Unterredung beim Führer*, February [15,] 1942, E A P 99/499*, C R S . 4 Rosenberg to Lammers, March 25, 1942, and Bormann to Rosenberg, April 3, 1942, E A P 99/58*, C R S.

480

Problems and Practice

PT. HI

possible, all the Easterners must be prevented from ‘ returning to Christianity . . . for it would be giving them a form of organiza­ tion’ .1 This was Hitler’s basic concern : to isolate the communities in the East from each other and to prevent the emergence of any organizations — social, communal, political, or religious — that might become nuclei for opposition movements. The iron logic of the situation commanded his policy : Communities, too, should be organized so that neighbouring villages cannot evolve anything in common. The formation of unitary churches for larger parts of the Russian territory is therefore to be prevented. It can be merely in our interest if each village has its own sect which develops its own image of god.2 This broad concept provided the background for the May 8, 1942, conference with Bormann and Rosenberg. The other element in Hitler’s thinking on the Eastern church was the fear of reper­ cussions at home. Though in principle approving the Rosenberg tolerance draft, Hitler decided that the appropriate decrees should be issued not by Rosenberg in Berlin but by the subordinates in the field. It was finally agreed [Rosenberg recorded upon returning from the conference] that the entire question would not be resolved by law but that the Reich Commissars would, as it were, consider the existing religious freedom as presupposed [voraussetzen] and would issue the necessary directives to implement it.3 No public announcement was to be made, and religious practices were to be tolerated tacitly. While the lack of publicity cancelled any propaganda value the edict could have had in the East, Hitler and Bormann were satisfied that in this way no one in Germany could gather that toleration in Russia might have ‘ reverberations in the Reich’, i.e. imply abandonment of anti-church policy at home.4 With Hitler’s approval in the files, Rosenberg now felt free to set about utilizing the ‘ Eastern churches’ for his own political ends. In a memorandum dated the following week he reaffirmed that care must be taken not to let the various religious organizations gain political dynamics of their o wn ; accordingly, no over-all church bodies were to be permitted above the Generalbezirk level. In 1 H T T , pp. 29, 34 (entries for August 19 and September 17, 1941). 2 Picker, op. cit. p. 72 (entry for April n , 1942). Hitler reiterated substantially the same sentiments a year later (H T T , p. 671). 3 Document 1520 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 286. 4 The same view was voiced in only slightly more veiled manner in a public address by the chief of the Ostministerium’s cultural section. (Scheidt, op. cit. p. 142.)

cm.

x .x ii

The Church: 1 ,ever or Challenge ?

481

particular, the Russian Orthodox Church was to be cut down in size. In spite of all the difficulties stemming from unpopularity and virtual non-existence, an anti-Russian autocephalous church was to he fostered in Belorussia. Likewise, in the Ukraine an autocephalous anti-Muscovite church movement was to be promoted even while the Reich withheld formal recognition from it as an official statesupported body.' Koch issued an ‘ edict of tolerance’ for the Ukraine on June 1, and Lohse followed suit for Ostland on June 19, 1942.2 For the next two years, the centre of gravity in the church question shifted from Berlin to the occupied East. The Ukrainian Churches Erich Koch could accept completely the two basic elements of the Berlin decision on the Eastern churches: their ‘ depolitization’ and their ‘ atomization’. Even prior to the May 1942 decision, he had decreed that Religion is the private affair of the individual. The costs of private affairs must be borne by each for himself. Therefore the expenses in maintaining Orthodox priests must be borne by the voluntary contribu­ tions of people who employ their services.3 Thus the churches neither taxed his budget nor imposed strains or obligations on his administration. On the other hand, Koch made no attempt to stamp out religion. So long as the church hierarchies did not rise above the district level to form powerful bodies, he was content to ‘ give the Ukrainians both their churches’. Indeed, fully 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Religionsgesellschaften in den besetzten Ostgebieten’ , M ay 13, 1942, Document C X L V a * , C D JC ; and Rosenberg, ‘ Ansprache’, Riga, M ay 16, 1942*. This agreement pertained to the Orthodox faith. On the treatment of the Moslem question, see above, Chapter X I II. One result of the Rosenberg memorandum and the local directives based on it was the dissolution of church sections in the organs of indigenous administration in the East : there was to be no semblance of state support for the church. The result of the prohibition to establish over-all religious organs and to maintain church sections (while probably approved of by some segments of the population) was to throw responsibility for the supervision of church affairs on the organs of civil and military government and to encourage clandestine church organizations and conferences which the German authorities had difficulty in following and surveilling. It also permitted individual members of the clergy to pursue their personal interests without being accountable to higher bodies within their hierarchy according to any strict code of discipline. (‘ Abschlussbericht’ , pp. 14 1-2 .) 2 For text, see Meyer, Recht, sections O i D 4 and U i D 2. Governing bodies of the various churches were to consist only of men whom the German General­ kommissar found politically ‘ unobjectionable’ . (Lohse, ‘ Uber die Rechtsverhält­ nisse religiöser Organisationen’ , June 19, 1942, ibid.) 3 Koch, circular, February 19, 1942, R K U , Zentralblatt, i (1942), 34-5 ; Kleist, op. lit. p. 183.

48 2

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

in line with Hitler’s ‘ divisive elements’ policy, Koch insisted on frustrating all attempts to merge the two different strains, the Autonomous and the Autocephalous Churches, into a united Ukrain­ ian religious faith.1 While Rosenberg would have given tacit backing to the Autocephalous, even though considerations of principle prevented him from urging its ‘ recognition’, Koch more consistently carried out the Fiihrer’s wishes by stimulating division within the churches of the Ukraine. Actually, considerable differences and factions arose independent of German policy. There were three major Orthodox groupings in the Soviet Ukraine : the Russian (Patriarchal), the Ukrainian Autonomous, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous churches.12 The first, continuing to recognize the Metropolitan (or Patriarch) of Moscow as the head of the entire Orthodox Church, had its strongest support in large urban centres, such as Kiev and Khar’kov. The fact that the hierarchy in Moscow appealed for active support of the Soviet regime in the war made the position of its followers on Germanheld territory difficult. In practice, the Patriarchal Church, as an institution, disappeared, and most of its clergy supported the more moderate of the two Ukrainian churches, the Autonomous, under Archbishop Alexis.3 The so-called Ukrainian Autocephalous Church (known by its Ukrainian initials as the UAPTs) dated back to Civil War days when, as part of the general struggle to cut all ties with Moscow and Petrograd, Ukrainian nationalism gave rise to a distinct jurisdiction which did not recognize Moscow as the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but instead proclaimed its independence (or, as it was called, its autocephaly), and adopted a liturgy in the Ukrainian language.4 Suppressed in the Soviet Ukraine after the consolidation of Bolshevik rule, it continued to exist in the Polish-held Western 1 Koch, speech, August 26-28, 1942, paraphrase, Document N G -2 7 2 0 * ; Kausch, ‘ Bericht über die Reise', June 26, 1943, Document Occ £ 4 - 1 1 * , Y IV O ; R K U [Dargel], circular, September 1, 1942, Document C X L V a -20 , C D JC . 2 The best monograph dealing with considerable insight and ample detail with the Ukrainian churches is Friedrich Heyer, Die orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine (Köln : Rudolf Müller, 1953), pp. 170 -227. 3 See also S. Raevskii, Ukrainskaia avtokefaVnaia tserkov' (Jordanville, N .Y . : Sv. Troitskii Monastyr', 1948), p. 11 ; interviews G -20, H-96. A fourth group, the so-called ‘ Living Church', was in effect outlawed because it had taken a proSoviet position. A splinter group of the Russian clergy, under Bishop Pan­ teleimon of the ancient Lavra monastery at Kiev, was prepared to place itself under the emigre church of Metropolitan Seraphim in Berlin. (See also ‘ Abschluss­ bericht', pp. 145-6, and below, p. 492.) 4 For its background, see also John S. Reshetar, ‘ Ukrainian Nationalism and the Orthodox Church', American Slavic and East European Review (New York), x, no. 1 (February 19 51), 38-49.

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Ukraine. While involved in a variety of canonical difficulties and disputes, the autocephalous grouping became a mainstay of violent nationalism. The German occupation seemed to provide its clergy with an opportunity to resume work in the East. In alliance with the Galician nationalists and with the support of some German groupings, it organized a movement back into the Soviet Ukraine.1 The new U A PTs was headed by Polykarp (Sikorskii), from 1932 on a bishop under the Orthodox metropolitan of Warsaw, Dionisius (Valedinskii). Polykarp recognized the Moscow patriarchate during the Soviet occupation of Volhynia (1939), but in 1941 remained in the area occupied by the Germans and, deprived of his sacerdotal position by Moscow, received from Dionisius the title of ‘ Administrator’ of the Ukrainian church. After prolonged and complex efforts, he was instrumental in calling a sobor (council) in Pinsk in February 1942, which elevated him to archbishop and made him head of the Auto­ cephalous Church. In the course of the same year, his followers succeeded in taking over many of the reopened churches; a dozen new bishops were ordained and assigned to various sees in the Eastern Ukraine.2 Next to Polykarp, the leading figure in the Autocephalous Church was Ilarion (Ohienko), a philologist and scholar of some note, who had assumed the bishopric of Kholm in 1940. Having estab­ lished good relations with the Abwehr and the Rosenberg staff, he began in July 1941 to prepare a sizeable mission of clergymen to move into the Eastern Ukraine as propagandists of autocephaly. Within a year his followers had taken over a considerable number of churches and established themselves in a fashion which one analyst has compared, pointedly though unkindly, with the carpetbaggers.3 In the meanwhile, a rival organization had arisen to compete 1 It is true that the Bandera group viewed it with some ambivalence, since the former shared some of the Nazi hostility to the church as such, realizing none the less that it represented a powerful vehicle for the spread of nationalism. For the war-time activities of the U A P T s, see, in addition to Heyer, op. cit.y John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, I 9 3 9 ~ I 9 4 5 (New York : Columbia University Press, 1955), ch. xviii. The German press was instructed not to report on Ukrainian church affairs ; hence references even to addresses of gratitude from the U A P T s and its clergy for German ‘ liberation from Jewish-Bolshevik rule’ and other expressions of loyalty to the Reich are to be found only in non-German publications. (See, for instance, Popolo d y Italia [Rome], September 26, 1941 ; and Svenska Dagbladet [Stockholm], February 23, 1942.) 2 Prominent among the new bishops was Stephen Skrypnyk, a politician who was formerly a member of the Polish Sejm and, after editing the chauvinist, German-controlled Volyri y was made Autocephalous Bishop Mstislav. 3 Einsatzgruppen Report, no. 30 (July 22, 19 4 1)* ; interviews G -10 , G -20 ; Fireside, op. cit. p. 65.

484

Problems and Practice

PT.

Ill

with the U APTs for the support of Ukrainian Orthodox believers. The Autonomous Ukrainian Church (known by its initials as the AUTs), like the Autocephalous, broke with a number of rites introduced by Moscow, but favoured loose recognition by, and eventually ties with, the head of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Patriarch of Moscow. In substance, this church favoured a ‘ federalist’ solution and gradual reforms, with more moderate elements among its followers. Its head was Polykarp’s one-time colleague, Archbishop Alexis Gromadskii (Oleksii Hromads’kyi), who, after recognizing the Moscow Church during the Soviet occupation, was captured by the Germans in 1941 but soon released. Joined by Panteleimon (Rudyk), whom Moscow had sent to L ’vov in 1940 as Orthodox bishop and who had remained behind when the Soviets left, Alexis from August 1941 on sought to establish the Autonomous Church, whose sobor in December proclaimed him metropolitan. At first the efforts of the A U T s were met with more scepticism than hostility by the extreme nationalists. Only from 1942 on was the split between them complete.1 Some attempts were made, however, to effect an agreement between Alexis and Polykarp with the aim of uniting their efforts. These endeavours were frustrated for a variety of reasons. Just as the anti-separatist ‘ right wing’ of.the Autonomous clergy (repre­ sented, for instance, by Bishops Panteleimon and Anthony of Kiev) objected to any ‘ deal’ with the Autocephalous, so the extreme nationalist politicians and some of their clerical friends opposed any agreement with the ‘ Muscophile’ Autonomous Church. Personal feuds between the leaders of the two factions were superimposed on canonical and political differences. In addition, Koch’s section for religious affairs was intent on keeping the churches divided and frustrated all efforts at a rapprochement between them. When, in spite of all difficulties, a tentative agreement was reached between the two church leaders in October 1942 at a meeting held at Pochaev Monastery in defiance of the R K U , the German administration intervened to prevent the alliance. One of the bishops involved in the conclave was ‘ exiled’ from the R K U into military territory, while another was threatened with arrest. A subsequent effort, in early 1943, also failed because of a German veto.2 1 See Armstrong, op. cit. pp. 194-8 ; interview G -20 ; Entsyklopediia Ukrainoznavstva (Munich : Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1949), vol. ii ; Krakivs'ki Vistiy M ay 20, 1942. Publicly, both the U A P T s and the A U T s professed a strongly pro-German attitude, though there were anti-Nazi elements in each. 2 T he agreement provided for mutual recognition and the convention of a unitary ‘ holy synod of bishops of the Ukraine*. Interview G -20 ; Stepan Baran, Mitropolit Andrei Sheptyts’kyi (Munich : Vernyhora, 1948) ; Heyer, op. cit. pp. 183 ff. ; ‘ Abschlussbericht*, p. 146 ; Raevskii, op. cit. pp. 13 ff. For German

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With the efforts at co-operation defeated, the struggle between the factions resumed its former proportions. On May 7, 1943, Alexis was killed. While the circumstances of his death have never been adequately explained, the most likely version has it that a group of Ukrainian policemen who had defected to the separatist partisans attacked a car with a German licence; only afterwards did they discover that one of their victims was Alexis — a fact they apparently did not regret.1 Alexis was succeeded by Bishop Pante­ leimon who, unlike him, was a bitter personal foe of Polykarp and Ilarion. This animosity was indeed one of the reasons why the Reich Commissariat had sanctioned Panteleimon’s elevation. For all intents and purposes, this ended the R K U ’s problem in keeping the two churches apart. The gulf between them had now become too great to bridge. It must be noted that on this question the attitude of the military was not substantially different from that of Koch or Rosenberg, whose disagreements in this field were comparatively minor. While the actual support either Ukrainian church group enjoyed in the area under Army jurisdiction varied from one kommandatura to the other, the dominant attitude was to utilize the churches for the transmission of German directives and slogans, but to keep them apart, because the Autonomous was deemed too dangerously ‘ panSlavic’, and the Autocephalous too violently separatist, to be supported.2 interference with the Ukrainian churches, see also V O U H , ‘ Obvynuvahuvarnyi vnesok ukrai'ns’koi hromads’kosti do mizhnarodn’oho sudu’ (Geneva [ ? ], 1946), M S*. 1 See also Armstrong, op. cit. p. 204. Since then, the Ukrainian nationalists have accused Alexis of being an N K V D agent, a charge fully reciprocated against the U A P T s by their political and religious enemies. (See ‘ The Eastern Orthodox Churches During and After World W ar I I ’ , Ukrainian Observer [London], i, no. 9 [September 1952], p. 6 ; and Raevskii, op. cit. pp. 14 -15 .) Bandera's followers admitted killing another Autonomous bishop, Manuil. 2 ‘ Abschlussbericht’ , p. 147. The Uniate Church in Galicia had an indirect impact on German policy in the Eastern Ukraine. Berlin viewed it as a strange hybrid — Orthodox but recognizing the Papacy — welcome because it was anti-Muscovite but dangerous because of its Vatican connections. Its head, old Metropolitan Szepticky (Sheptyts’kyi), initially took his stand on the pro-German side, threw his considerable prestige behind the Stetsko coup, but continued ‘ on the whole, pro-Germ an’ (as an S S report put it) after the arrest of the Bandera leaders, though with serious misgivings. While the administration of the Government-General was rather tolerant of him, the Ostministerium, although not objecting to Uniate activity in Galicia, took pains to keep the ‘ Roman influence’ out of the Eastern Ukraine, where the Uniates had few followers and many foes. Szepticky made a series of attempts to bring about an alliance between the Uniates and the Autocephalous adherents, the two national­ ist churches. However, Ohienko, who conducted the negotiations for the U A P T s, refused unification under the authority of the Pope. See Baran, op. cit. pp. 12 3 -3 2 ; Armstrong, op. cit. pp. 80, 172, 195 ; Sheinman, op. cit. p. 181 ; Heyer, op. cit.

486

Problems and Practice

PT. Ill

The Church in Belorussia The situation in Belorussia differed from that in the Ukraine in several significant respects. In Western Belorussia, Catholic influence was stronger; and, since Belorussian nationalism was weak, the over-all ‘ Russian’ Orthodox Church was predominant. As both of these features were distasteful to Rosenberg and Kube, it was deemed wise to establish and promote one new Belorussian autocephalous movement to offset the Catholic and the ‘ Muscovite ’ influences.1 The church was clearly intended to be an instrument for the furtherance of German political goals, since there was no danger that it would become an autonomous and potentially antiGerman factor through popular support. As a result, rather than establish several competing factions, one synthetic ‘ Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox National Church’ was authorized by Kube, in accordance with a proposal of his nationalist collaborators.2 The ‘ autocephalous’ movement proved to have so few native roots that it was necessary to make a non-sympathizer its head. Metropolitan Panteleimon (Rozhnovskii), born in 1867, had been bishop of Dvinsk and Polotsk before the first World War, had stayed in Polish territory and in 1939, when the Soviet forces returned, was made exarch of Western Belorussia. He was selected to head the Autocephalous Church, largely because of his prestige and seniority in clerical circles, but over the bitter opposition of some Belorussian nationalists. In particular, Dionisius from Warsaw, in a countermove to his support of Polykarp and Ilarion in the Ukraine, sent to Minsk Archimandrite (later Bishop) Philotheus; meanwhile some of the ardent separatists working in Minsk initiated intrigues against Panteleimon, who sought to delay formal proclama­ tion of autocephaly for canonical as well as political reasons. After bitter intrigues, a sobor of bishops was convened in Minsk in March 1942 and established five bishoprics, whose borders were duly defined to coincide with German administrative divisions. In pp. 178-9 ; Einsatzgruppen Reports, nos. 50 and 52 (August 12 and 14, 19 4 1)* ; interview G -20. 1 On Catholic efforts, spearheaded by Father Hadleüski (Godlevski), and his subsequent volte-face from a pro-German to an anti-German position, see above, p. 216. 2 The following account is based largely on the only authoritative and detailed, though partisan, account, ‘ M sgr A. M . ’ [Anton Martos, i.e. Bishop Athanasius], Mater ialy da historyi Pravaslaünae Belaruskae Tsarkvy (n.p., 1948) ; see also Einsatzgruppen Reports, nos. 32 and 36 (July 24, 28, 19 4 1)* ; Metropolitan Panteleimon, *Lebenslauf’, Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, personnel files, Document Occ E - 4 1 * , Y IV O ; Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland (Riga), May 27, 1942 ; Deutsche Post aus dem Osten, June 1942, p. 32 ; R K O , memorandum, M ay 20, 1942, Document Occ E (C h)-8#, Y IV O . On the Belorussian nationalists, see above, pp. 213-6 .

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general, the church section of Kube’s staff dictated the decisions of the church council. Finally, when Panteleimon refused to ordain the new bishop-elect of Smolensk (which was to be under the Minsk jurisdiction), the German administration on June 1, 1942, ordered the metropolitan dismissed and exiled to a monastery outside the borders of the General Commissariat. In substance this marked a triumph of the extreme nationalists. Philotheus, who became the new administrator of the Belorussian Autocephalous Church, was far more pliable and sympathetic to the separatists’ stand, but too much of a churchman to violate canon for political reasons. Not being entitled to proclaim autocephaly, he resisted German and separatist pressure. When the remaining bishops, with Philotheus, called a new sobor for August 1942, the General Commissariat ‘ categorically’ forbade such action without preliminary German approval, significantly restricted the authority of the church, both geographically and functionally, and barred Panteleimon (whom the bishops had invited) from participating. As time passed, resentment over German interference grew, not only among the rank-and-file clergy but even among the Autocephalous hierarchy. Only in mid-1943, with church affairs stalemated, was a slightly softer touch adopted by the Kube adminis­ tration, which then permitted Panteleimon to return to Minsk. A systematic reorganization and reactivation of the church began.1 Yet autocephaly was never formally proclaimed, even if the Auto­ cephalous was the ‘ official’ Orthodox church. Moreover, many of the local clergy, while accepting the hierarchy, never came to support its ‘ reforms’. Nor was the autocephalous movement ever popular. Characteristically, the same section of Kube’s office which perpetually intervened in the workings of the Minsk Metropolitan’s office was also unwilling to come out publicly in support of the Autocephalous 1 Fights continued, however, partly because Philotheus sought to occupy a middle position between the Germans and Panteleimon, partly because he had been close to the Ermachenko group that had meanwhile been dismissed ; the succeeding Astraüski wing of the Belorussian separatists for this reason sought to oust him and replace him with Bishop Stephen (Seüba), the extremist whom Panteleimon had refused to appoint to Smolensk. The S D in Minsk was active in the anti-Panteleimon intrigues, which dovetailed with its efforts to dislodge Ermachenko (see above, p. 217). In its reports to Berlin it sought to upbraid Kube, the autocephalous church, as well as the Great Russians. Not incorrectly, however, it summarized the situation as follows : The General Commissar [Kube] brought the autocephalous Orthodox Belo­ russian Church to life in order to split the Belorussians from the Great Russians in the field of religion. It has become manifest that the Belorussian national church has become a catch basin for Great Russian priesthood ; moreover, there is no national Belorussian clergy available to replace it. . . . (Einsatzgruppen Report, New Series, no. 6 [June 5, 1942]*.)

488

Problems and Practice

PT. 11!

Church. In 1944, on the eve of the German retreat from Minsk, the official in charge at the Rosenberg Ministry summarized the situation as follows: It is a fact that the overwhelming part of the Belorussian Orthodox clergy is Russian in spirit. The rearing of a Belorussian nationally conscious hierarchy meets with difficulties; it would be possible only if German initiative were deployed in the religious field. This, however, runs counter to the political directives now in force. . . .' While it is more than questionable whether German activity could have changed anything, the dilemma was a nice reflection of the contradictory elements in German church policy in the East. In Belorussia, the whole autocephalous experiment was a failure, which added to the other strains producing a change of heart among the population with regard to the Germans. The Russian Orthodox Church in the East The Russian Orthodox Church continued to operate with new vigour on occupied soil. Since its hierarchy was not recognized in the Ukraine and because the areas adjacent to Belorussia, such as Smolensk, were assigned to the Belorussian Autocephalous Church, the main area left to it was in the north. Moreover, with the fabric of social life less disrupted in the Baltic States than elsewhere in the East, the spokesman of Russian Orthodoxy there exerted a dis­ proportionately large influence on the population.12* There was a peculiar logic to the German position on church matters. In the Ukraine, where the indigenous church might have been strong, it was kept divided. In Belorussia, where the separa­ tists were weak, one single anti-Russian church was promoted because it injected a new element of divisiveness without representing a political threat. In the Baltic States a Russian Orthodox move­ ment was permitted because the bulk of the indigenous population was non-Orthodox and non-Russian. It was characteristic that the chief spokesman for Russian Orthodoxy was tolerated neither in the Great Russian areas (where he might have become the symbol of a political movement), nor in the Ukraine or Belorussia (where he would have undermined German efforts to promote 4anti-Muscovite ’ 1 RM fdbO. [Milwe-Schröden], memorandum, June i, 1944, E A P 9 9 /113 2 * , CR S. 2 There is some empirical evidence that religious Orthodox feeling was stronger in the border area, roughly between Polotsk and Pskov, near the zone of Lutheran influence, than in many other parts of Russia. See also Einsatzgruppen Report, no. 69 (August 3 1 , 19 4 1)* ; Pravoslavnyi Khristianin (Pskov, Riga), 1943, no. 7-9 (July-September) ; ‘ P .I.’, ‘ T ri goda pod nemetskoi okkupatsii*, M S * .

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separatism), but in the Baltic area, where he was considered politically innocuous, almost on emigre status, but useful as a counterweight to the Soviet-controlled Russian church and also in some measure to the national Lutheran movements in Estonia and Latvia. Several prelates of the Orthodox Church in the Baltic region hailed the arriving Germans. Among them, the outstanding figure was Metropolitan Sergius (Voskresenskii), a prominent veteran of the Russian church who, after the Soviet occupation in 1940, was assigned from Moscow to Riga as Orthodox head in the Baltic States. As early as July n , 1941, the Germans reported that he was willing to issue an appeal to all the faithful in Russia to join the struggle against Communism.1 With some German support, Sergius managed to consolidate his leading position in the course of the next year.2 After a convention of Orthodox prelates in August 1942 concluded with the dispatch of a congratulatory message to Hitler, Moscow responded in September by condemning the Riga convocation and called upon its participants to explain whether the report attributing to them a prayer ‘ to the Almighty to bless [the German] arms with speedy and complete victory’ was correct. The following month, this exchange across the front lines continued with a reply from Sergius of Riga. Praising the Germans for religious tolerance in the occupied areas (and interjecting some anti-Semitic references), he at last took firm issue with the Metropolitan of Moscow.3 On the surface, Sergius appeared wedded to the German cause. When the Germans returned religious books and icons from the Novgorod region to him, he profusely expressed his gratitude and 1 Einsatzgruppen Report, no. 19 (July 1 1, 19 4 1)*, p. 4. Interestingly enough, the report implied S D participation in drafting the appeal. T h e other leading officials were Archbishop Jacob of Mitava, Archbishop Paul of Narva, and Bishop Daniel of Kaunas. See also Kleist, op. cit. p. 1 3 1 . 2 In order to do so, he had to overcome a jurisdictional dispute with some of his subordinates, notably the bishops in Tallinn and Narva, who refused to recognize his exarchate. The Generalkommissariat in Tallinn supported the local bishop against Sergius, but was overruled by the R K O church section, which decided in favour of an alteration of the standard ‘ atomization1 policy. ‘ T he goal*, wrote the Riga office in October 1942, ‘ continues to be the unification of the Orthodox parishes under the Exarch [Sergius]. However, this goal must not be attained under state duress/ The decision to support Sergius seems to have been based on a desire to forestall a ‘ Latvianization ’ and ‘ Estonization ’ of the Orthodox churches there. (See the correspondence files, Document Occ E (C h )-i * and Occ E (C h )7-8 #, Y IV O .) 3 Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland, October 8, 1942 ; Pravda o religii v Rossii (Moscow : Moskovskaia Patriarkhiia, 1942), pp. 128-45. During the first year of the occupation, the Russian metropolitans on both sides of the front had apparently refrained from attacking each other. On Sergius, see also Vasilii Alexeev, ‘ Russian Orthodox Bishops in the Soviet Union, 1 9 4 1 -1 9 5 3 * (New Y o rk : Research Program on the U .S .S .R ., 1954), pp. 86-95.

490

Problems and Practice

pr. i n

once more prayed for the victory of Hitler’s legions. But such appearances could be deceptive, and the Germans knew i t ; actually he was primarily interested in strengthening his church and his own role.1 At the same time, from the end of 1942 on, there appeared more and more references in his sermons to the ‘ suffering Russian soul’ and Russian ‘ national values’, references which clashed sharply with the Untermensch theme and the anti-Russian refrain in German policy. The startling denouement was perhaps inevitable. On April 29, 1944, Sergius was killed. While the official church announce­ ment in Riga somewhat mysteriously named no culprit but added that he ‘ fell victim to his devotion to the Church and to his boundless love of his Motherland ’, a Russian journalist who knew him well states that he had been denounced to the Germans by a personal foe and was shot by a German SD patrol while driving in a car near Vilnius.12 The Politics of B elief The religious question felt the repercussions of the general shift in Nazi Ostpolitik late in the war towards a greater exploitation of the psychological warfare potential inherent in the use of ‘ indigenous’ personnel. The Ostministerium’s section on church affairs, in late 1943 and 1944, came out in support of the churches (provided they reciprocated the ‘ collaboration’) for frankly political reasons. This action was prompted, in part, by the search for new approaches and solutions at a moment of crisis in the Reich, and in part, by Soviet church policy. In an all-out effort to mobilize the patriotic and spiritual forces of the peoples of the U .S.S.R ., Moscow had early in the war stopped all anti-religious propaganda; the metropolitans had come out for Stalin as the ‘ divinely ordained leader’ in the struggle against the Germ ans; and the churches, reopened and re­ furbished, became centres of Soviet patriotic propaganda. Finally, on September 4, 1943, Stalin received the Metropolitan of Moscow, whereupon the restoration of the Synod was announced, with the Metropolitan as the new Patriarch. Moscow gave wide publicity to 1 Pravoslavnyi Khristianin, no. 5 (December 1942) ; Fireside, op. cit. p. 62. An extensive memorandum which he submitted to the Germans in November 1941 was devoted — in a clever attempt to strengthen his own position by using Nazi terminology — to the desirability of applying the Führerprinzip to the church. (Sergius, ‘ Denkschrift betreffend die Lage der Orthodoxen Kirche im Ostland’ , November 21, 19 4 1*.) A t the same time, Sergius made contact, behind the Ger­ mans’ backs, with the leaders of the Belorussian Orthodox Church in an attempt to persuade its more moderate members to remain faithful to an all-Russian church and to recognize his exarchate. (See Einsatzgruppen Report, New Series, no. 6 [June 5, 1942]*.) 2 Interview H -67 ; Pravoslavnyi Khristianin, nos. 5 (December 1942) and 20/21 (March-April 1944) l see also Alexeev, op. cit. p. 95, and Fireside, op. cit. p. 63.

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this event, contrasting it with reports of German atrocities against worshippers and churches in the occupied territory, and a conclave of Soviet clergy declared that everyone guilty of treachery to the common cause of the Church and desertion to the side of Fascism as an enemy of God’s crucifix will be deemed excommunicated ; and if he be bishop or priest he will be unfrocked. Amen.1 Such an endeavour called for a rebuttal from the Germans and the collaborating clergy : both Berlin and Moscow sought to pose as protectors of the faith (just as both posed as protectors of the peasantry and of the national minorities). This Soviet action precipitated a victory for those Nazi spokesmen who advocated a ‘ political exploitation’ of the church over those who preferred to ignore the church so long as it stayed out of politics. In reply to the Moscow conclave, a special conference of eight Russian Orthodox bishops, including Seraphim of Berlin, was convened in Vienna in October 1943. A week after its conclusion, when the German press briefly reported on its resolutions, Sergius of Riga expressed his displeasure in no uncertain terms. In general, he viewed Seraphim and the Karlowac Church as decrepit reactionaries who had lost all touch with Soviet affairs and could only compromise the anti-Soviet cause by foisting themselves upon it. What he objected to most was the close and overt association between the monarchist emigres and the Nazis; for, he wrote, ‘ the Bolsheviks would depict it as if the emigre bishops were utterly subservient tools of German policy’ . Sergius suggested using the elevation of the Metropolitan in Moscow to the patriarchate for a propaganda drive to show up Soviet weak­ ness : ‘ It was a sign of the bankruptcy of Bolshevism if in its retreat it has had to yield so much as to recognize God and the Church’.12 German tactical recognition of the Orthodox Church was equally a sign of weakness and failure. 1 Resolution, September 8, 1943, Izvestia (Moscow), September 18, 1943. Such proclamations, it is true, need not have reflected the genuine feelings of the Moscow hierarchy, many of whose statements were surprisingly moderate in this regard. In substance, one gathers, the positions of Sergius of Riga and his opposite numbers behind the Soviet lines may not have been so far apart ; each, however, was pushed forward as a convenient mouthpiece by his sponsors — German or Soviet — into a position more extreme or clear-cut than either church group may have desired. (See also Alexeev, op. cit. p. 96.) 2 ‘ Antwort an Stalin’ , Deutsche Zeitung im Ostlandy November 3, 1943 ; ‘ Soobshcheniia i rasporiazheniia Vysokopreosviashchenneishago Serafima Mitropolita Berlinskago, Spetsial’nyi Vypusk* [Berlin, October 1943], Y IV O ; SiPo/ SD , Ostland, ‘ Stellungnahme des Exarchen Sergij’, November 30, 1943, Occ E(Ch) 7 -8 *, Y IV O . Moscow had excommunicated Seraphim while Sergius was still in Russia.

492

Problems and Practice

PT. I l l

The Vienna conference of Russian bishops had its counterpart in a conference of the Belorussian Autocephalous clergy in Minsk in the spring of 1944, held at the instigation of Gottberg in reply to the appeal of the Moscow Patriarchate.1 Likewise, the Ukrainian Autocephalous, during the retreat from the Eastern Ukraine, had found refuge in the Government-General of Poland, where Hans Frank, the governor, permitted them to convene a council in Warsaw and even had his aides greet the leaders of the U A P T s.12 All these moves were symptomatic of the about-face in German policy, high-lighted by the positive participation of the SS and SD, which for tactical reasons now shed its traditional anti-religious pose. As Berger’s office wrote Rosenberg in June 1944 : We should establish closer relations to use the church for our ends. Since the Orthodox religion is alien to Germany, it will have no bad results here [unlike Bormann’s and Rosenberg’s fears of 1942]. We should encourage a union of the [Ukrainian] churches, as this would lead to a depolitization of religion, whereas now the conflicting groups use the religious conflict as a screen. Religion is per se a pacifying factor. With Berger’s consent, therefore, the SD and the Ostministerium negotiated with the remaining prominent Orthodox leaders. Pante­ leimon of Kiev, who was the chief obstacle to unity with the separa­ tists, was to be transferred to Riga to replace the dead Sergius. Therewith the path would be open for the convocation of a single Ukrainian Orthodox Synod, with the Germans holding the veto power — a solution to which both Ilarion (Ohienko) and Mstislav (Skrypnyk) consented. In the words of the German reporter, ‘ the non-clerical background of Ilarion and Mstislav [one was a politician, the other a linguist] explains their lack of religious fanaticism and willingness to consider political factors’ .3 The church was to become a propaganda tool of the Reich.

There was more logic in Nazi policy towards the churches than could be found in other fields of German Ostpolitik. In line with the basic dictum of divide et imperd, such divisions among the indigenous faithful as existed were to be intensified and perpetuated ; where there were none, a divisive element was introduced. Typically, 1 ‘ M sgr A . M .\ op. cit. pp. 1 1 4- 1 5 ;* Gottberg to Berger, February 5, 1944, E A P 99/468*, C R S . 2 ‘ Antibolschewistisches Memorandum des Bischofskonzils der ukrainischen Kirche*, Krakauer Zeitung (Cracow), March 15, 1944. 3 RM fdbO . [Church Affairs Section] to Rosenberg, June 30, 1944, Document C X L V a 66*, C D JC .

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Sergius as head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was tolerated outside the Great Russian area; and the programme of unifying the two Ukrainian national churches received German endorsement only after they had retreated from native soil. All-pervading was the fear that the church would provide a political rallying-point for the people against its German master. The paradox in German church policy was the substantial resurgence of religious life on the local level in spite of the conflicts and confusions at the top. As one analyst has found in examining popular religious aspirations, ‘ German controls in their very contra­ dictions permitted this vital force free movement, except at its apex’ . Displaced persons who lived under the German occupation over­ whelmingly point to religion as the one and only area in which there was a substantial, consistent improvement over pre-war Soviet conditions.1 This was so because of German tolerance at the local level (especially in the areas of military government) rather than because of encouragement from the top. The church’s revival was due not only to the persistence of religious faith but also to its unique status as the sole surviving institution that had been neutral under the Soviets and was able to preserve an element of autonomy under the Germans. In the deep and often inarticulate popular search for a third solution — neither Soviet nor German — the church, whatever its denomination, was bound to be a focus of mass allegiance. In spite of its long and bitter persecution by the Soviet regime, it had maintained an appeal, though primarily to the older and rural elements. Just as the Germans failed to appeal successfully to the intel­ lectuals and workers in the towns, they also failed to capitalize on the religious sentiments of the peasantry. While here and there gratitude for their religious tolerance was genuine, the vacillations in Nazi policy and the sum-total of other impressions evoked by their behaviour cancelled what benefit was realized from the reopening of the churches. Berlin, unlike Moscow, had once more missed a ‘ natural’ opportunity. Instead, it floundered between slaughtering and saddling the ‘ religious horse’ (as one Nazi official put it) on w'hich it wished yet feared to bank. 1 Project on the Soviet Social System, Russian Research Center, Harvard University, ‘ Wartime Occupation Code Book*,* W O io.

G .R .R .— 2 K

P A R T IV

P O L IT IC A L W A R FA R E

CHAPTER XXIII

CAST AND CREDOS The seriousness of the situation clearly makes imperative the positive co-operation of the population. Russia can be beaten only by Russians.— Military government commanders, Decem­ ber 1942

A Fatal Error W h il e the exploitation of Eastern resources and labour raised no qualms in Nazi hearts, the political and military utilization of the Soviet population on the German side clashed violently with Nazi ideology and pre-invasion planning. The conduct of what has come to be known as political warfare; appealing to the Soviet population with a distinct political programme or promise for the future; the organization of a political focus, whether a Russian government-in-exile or a galaxy of liberation committees; even the arming of masses of Untermenschen to fight their erstwhile masters under the banners of a liberation movement — all these were initially considered ideologically taboo, politically dangerous, and militarily superfluous.1 Hitler himself ruled out any programme of political inducements. Once Russia was conquered, he mused, the population could be left to its own devices — ‘ provided that we rule them. In case of revo­ lution we would merely need to drop a few bombs on the town in question, and the matter would be settled.’ - This presupposed that there would be no relaxation of German controls. ‘ The road to selfgovernment leads to independence’, the Führer declared : In order to retain our domination over the people in the territories we have conquered to the east of the Reich, we must therefore meet, to the best of our ability, any and every desire for individual liberty which they may express, and by so doing deprive them of any form of State organiza­ tion and consequently keep them on as low a cultural level as possible.123 1 See also above, pp. 18-19. 2 Harry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1951), pp. 44-5 (entry for November 8-10, 1941). 3 Ibid. pp. 50, 72 (entries for February 3 and April 1 1, 1942) ; and H T T , pp. 423-4 (entry for April 11, 1942). 407

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It was not that Hitler was unaware of the psychological warfare problems involved. As he later restated his views, . . . ruling the people in the conquered regions is, I might say, of course a psychological problem. One cannot rule by force alone. True, force is decisive, but it is equally important to have this psychological some­ thing which the animal trainer also needs to be master of his beast. They must be convinced that we are the victors. . . J Within this framework he did not object to the use of propaganda in the occupied areas, especially that aimed at the retreating Red A rm y; 12 but he refused to yield to the adoption of political warfare because it meant compromising his goals and his methods, geared as they were to straight conquest and colonization. Only later did the question arise of ‘ winning’ the population in the coveted areas by satisfying their aspirations. It was brought to the fore by the weight of the empirical evidence amassed by the propagandists; sustained by the equally pragmatic approach of certain military government and intelligence officers; spurred by the almost spontaneous formation of auxiliary indigenous units with the German armed forces; and dramatized by the complex and furious struggle over political warfare that had General Andrei Vlasov as its storm-centre. The initial outlook was well symbolized by the limits imposed on German propaganda. When a report of the OKW propaganda staff urged, as early as mid-August 1941, that ‘ force, brutality, looting, and deception should be avoided in order to win over the population’, General Jodi angrily wrote on the margin : ‘ These are dangerous signs of despicable humanitarianism’ .3 ‘ Winning over’ the population was not yet a recognized goal. The price of this policy in terms of propaganda operations was amply apparent. In the words of one analyst, Any mention of the future disposition of Soviet territory or its people, any reference to nationality, ethnic minorities, or self-government remained definitely and strictly outlawed. This withheld from German psychological warfare the most effective weapon against the rising tide of Russian nationalist propaganda which had begun to replace Communist slogans at the end of July [1941]. . . . The Germans could counter [this propaganda campaign] only with negative arguments because they were denied the pseudo-patriotic themes which had helped them to utilize 1 [Hitler,] ‘ Auszug aus der Ansprache des Führers an die Heeresgruppen­ führer pp. am 1.7.43 abends’, Document 739 -P S, Vierteljahrshefte fü r Zeit­ geschichte (Munich), ii (1954), 309. 2 See also above, pp. 66, 459. 3 Cited in Paul W . Blackstock, ‘ German Covert Political Warfare Against the U .S .S .R .’ , M S * (Washington, 1954), ch. v, p. 2.

cir. xxiti

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national sentiment to their own advantage during the French and, to a smaller extent, the Norwegian campaigns. They ignored the existence of nationalism even to the extent of forbidding the use of the word ‘ Russian ’ in their propaganda.1 The closest approach to enlisting the sympathy of the people was vague allusions to ‘ freedom from Bolshevism’. As late as November 1941 all propaganda addressed* to the occupied areas of the U .S.S.R . was ordered to adhere to the form ula: ‘ Your fate depends on your attitude and your work. As long as the war is in progress, nothing can be said of the future. The decision will come later and will depend on your attitude.’ 12 The disregard for the political and military potential of the Untermensch was a symbiosis of doctrine and practice. As a matter of principle, the Bormann school of thought was profoundly hostile to any project dignifying the Ostmensch with ‘ recognition’ as a soldier, let alone as an ally. Economic motives, in turn, prompted the Göring-Backe group to view the East as an object of exploitation and to disregard any thought of political rehabilitation. The dominant assumption of both groups during the first phase of the war was that victory was imminent. Joseph Goebbels was perhaps the first among all Nazi leaders to realize the failure of German objectives: when the initial ‘ three months’ failed to defeat the Soviet Union, he dictated a 27-page memorandum (which un­ fortunately has not been preserved); experts to whom it was shown believed that ‘ proclamation of this plan by Hitler would enlist the complete sympathy of all the Russian peoples’. Granting that this was an exaggeration, one of Goebbels’ aides none the less recognized that ‘ it is certain that we shall never win the campaign or the Eastern peoples without a political programme’ .3 And Goebbels himself added a few months later : . . . We were geared altogether too much to a brief campaign and saw victory so close to our eyes that we thought it unnecessary to bother about psychological questions of this sort. What we missed then we must now recoup the hard way.4 A fundamental reappraisal of tactics was in order once it became apparent that there would be no early victory. While the rigid 1 John H. Buchsbaum, ‘ German Psychological Warfare on the Russian Front, 19 4 0 -19 4 5 ’ , M S #, O C M H , ch. iv, pp. 22-3. 2 O K W /W Pr, ‘ Propaganda in die sowjetische Bevölkerung’ , November 7, 19 4 1, O K W /6 34*, C R S . 3 Rudolf Semmler, Goebbels — The Man Next to Hitler (London : Westhouse, 1947), p. 53 (entry for September 29, 1941). 4 The Goebbels Diaries (Garden City : Doubleday, 1948), p. 195,

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extremists, like Hitler, Bormann, and Koch, stubbornly stood pat even then, others began advocating substantial changes in political tactics and strategy. Experiments began, protests and memoranda were submitted and debated — largely behind the Führer’s back — over the political and military utilization of Eastern man. Three Concepts If the war could be won in a matter of months, the Reich might be able — perhaps foolhardily — to afford to ignore the reaction of the Russian population. If the outcome was in doubt and if, for months and perhaps years, millions of Soviet men and women were destined to live under German rule while others continued to fight the Wehrmacht under Soviet standards and slogans, it became a matter of primary importance to win the people to the German side. This was the common denominator of the different factions which, in firm opposition to the Koch-Bormann concept, constituted what may be called the ‘ realist’ camp. They included advocates of psychological warfare efforts on the individual level; of conventional propaganda warfare; and of bona fide political warfare.1 The first of these groups favoured a fundamental change in German behaviour towards the population in the occupied areas. The more perspicacious observers soon noted the particular sensi­ tivity of Soviet citizens to personal humiliation and indignity. They also saw how little was required — given tactful handling — to dispose individual Easterners in favour of the Germans. Army, Ostministerium, and Foreign Office files were full of reports substantially repeating the same conclusions : Time after time the population of the Ukraine shows itself grateful for every instance when it is dealt with humanely on the basis of equality, and reacts strongly against contemptuous treatment.2 Hence a number of occupation officials and army officers took it upon themselves to conduct a ‘ policy of human decency’ . At times, they embraced it as a conscious contribution to the war effort: selfinterest was a potent master. In other instances, as among the professional officers, there was a residue of traditional morality that dictated what ought and ought not be done. Finally, in a few instances, such efforts stemmed from genuine compassion for people 1 In addition, there were such exceptional men as Wilhelm Baum, formerly German press attache in Moscow, who in 1942 committed suicide, largely out of despondence over and disgust with German Ostpolitik. (See Artur W. Just, Russland in Europa [Stuttgart : Union deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1949], p. 27.) 2 O K W report, cited in RM fdbO., Propaganda-Dienst, no. 1 (August 1942), P- 5 -

CH. XXI I I

Cast and Credos

5° i

or from a deliberate thought-process which viewed these efforts as a vital first step towards a much-needed political offensive.1 A little ‘ fraternizing’ in an overnight billet, sharing photographs from home with the curious peasants, telling a story about life in pre-war Germany, punishing a fellow-soldier who had turned chicken thief in the lawless no-man’s-land — often these personal contacts with the occupation personnel left a lasting mark on the civilians. Yet, in terms of popular allegiance, the ‘ decent behaviour’ school could have no significant impact unless it became part of a comprehensive reversal of German political policy. A more extensive scheme was advocated by the professional propagandists. At an early point in the campaign some of them realized that the negative slogans of anti-Bolshevism (and, even more so, of anti-Semitism) were insufficient to attract the Soviet peoples to the German side. Goebbels’ men and some of their military opposite numbers therefore began drafting appeals addressed directly to the ‘ Peoples of the East’ ; proclamations from the German government, from non-existing Russian and minority liberation committees that lived only in its radio scripts and leaflets were some of the tricks to which the Propaganda Ministry resorted. . . . The Eastern peoples [two of Goebbels’ top aides wrote] must be given a programme, none of whose promises may be carried out before victory is achieved. . . . That is, we must speak two tongues.2 The nihilists did not shrink from making promises for the future if, and only if, they were likely to produce disaffection in the Red Army or foster stronger identification of the population in the occupied areas with the Reich. But these promises were admittedly and purposefully fictitious : they amounted to political fly-paper intended to attract and catch, not to satisfy and free. No attempt was made — indeed, under the division of jurisdiction in Germany, it was not the business of the propagandists to make it — to reconcile slogans with reality, words with deeds. Typically, Goebbels and later Himmler were willing to resort to such devices, however far beyond the pale of morality and principle they might b e ; 3 Rosen­ berg and Bormann, however far apart, were each too fanatically 1 For the picture of a German commandant who begins ‘ rehabilitating’ a Russian village entrusted to him, see Hanns Wiedmann, Landser, Tod und Teufel (Munich : Piper, 1943), pp. 69 ff. 2 Hadamowsky and Taubert, ‘ Bericht über die Propaganda-Lage im Osten’ , September 17, 1942, Document Occ E 18 -19 * , Y IV O , pp. 38, 42. 3 The endorsement of pretended political warfare did not prevent either of them from whole-heartedly supporting the war aims of the Führer — whatever the surviving members of their agencies may have been arguing since 1945.

502

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. iv

subservient to the official creed to accept with grace such a temporary substitution of distasteful tactics for ultimate goals. Hitler himself held out the longest against such hypocrisy, although not for moral scruples. In principle he was prepared to go as far along the road of propaganda trickery as any of his subordinates. His refusal to sanction it, one suspects, stemmed from a mental and emotional block that made him balk at the thought of accepting Russians or Ukrainians as ‘ allies’, albeit merely as a figleaf for conquest. He rationalized his stand by arguing that he could not possibly explain to the German soldier that such propaganda appeals were sheerest can t: I would be prepared to go God knows how far [he declared], were it not for the psychological impact [on the German people]. I would say, for instance, that we shall set up a completely independent Ukraine — / would say this in cold determination and then not do it anyhow. But this is the sort of thing only a politician can do. I cannot tell every soldier (for it would have to be proclaimed with equal publicity): ‘ This is not true. What I have said is just tactics.’ 1 Pretending to be fearful of the ricochet effect of the tactics of deceit, Hitler preferred to eschew ‘ political warfare’ in Russia altogether, relegating it, like poison gas, to the arsenal of forbidden weapons. Unlike Hitler and Goebbels, there were others in Berlin who came to look upon political warfare as a genuine, essential element of long-range strategy. In substance, this was the view of two schools — the advocates of a free and presumably federated Russia, em­ bracing a wide range of figures from ex-Ambassador Schulenburg to Captain Strik-Strikfeldt; and the self-appointed protectors of the non-Russian nationalities, typified by such different types as Hans Koch and Gerhard von Mende. In both camps there were utilitarian and German-centred patriots as well as sincere Russophiles (or Ukrainophiles). The importance of their inchoate en­ deavours lay in the goal of making the Soviet peoples partners of the Reich: in the case of the ‘ Free Russia’ school the entire Soviet population was to be enrolled against Bolshevik ru le; in the case of the nationalities spokesmen, the minorities of the U .S.S.R . were to be rallied against the Great Russians. At some stage, this movement was bound to entail the formation of a liberation committee or government-in-exile composed of defectors and refugees — a notion that clashed radically with the orthodox Nazi denial of the Easterners being a Staatsvolk, a people capable and worthy of governing themselves. And it meant en­ 1 Document 739-PS, op. cit. p. 311 ,

Cast and Credos

CM. XXI I I

503

dowing such an organ with some authority and prestige — a gamble which opened the prospect of a politically autonomous development of such a group and was therefore taboo, even in the form of a quisling-type regime. Inevitably the advocacy of such genuine political endeavours was generally deemed heretical. At times it had to be couched in mellower terms or concealed behind con­ ventional Nazi phraseology. This verbal camouflage makes the proper identification of the sub-groups in the ‘ realist’ camp more difficult. Moreover, the three factions outlined above were not actually rigidly defined, nor were their ideas always articulately stated. In particular, many of their adherents would have been unable to differentiate between the ‘ sincere ’ and ‘ utilitarian ’ orientations ; most might not have clearly distinguished between what they wished to promise and what they were willing to tolerate in the victorious future. With few exceptions, these were not the voices of a ‘ disloyal opposition’ but came from within the German Government, Party, or Army machines. They were largely Germans who considered themselves patriotic and, whatever their feelings about Hitler and Stalin, wanted to help the Reich win the war against the Soviet state. At the same time, a major role was played by several of the main anti-Hitler plotters, in and out of the Army. Though the ‘ revisionists’ and ‘ realists’ in Ostpolitik, on the one hand, and the German resistance movement, on the other, were in no sense coterminous (the former including many full-fledged Nazis, and the latter many men unconcerned about the East), the two streams of criticism fed each other, and the cadres of both overlapped. AntiNazis, like Stauffenberg and Tresckow, Schulenburg and Hassell, were also, as will become apparent, in the forefront of those fighting for a new course in the East.1 Rosenberg might have been the logical spokesman for the advocates of political warfare. His outlook was conditioned by long-range plans of a political nature; in his earliest memoranda he already spoke of ‘ political purposes’ and ‘ political aims’, and his entire scheme of breathing life into the separatist movements amounted to nothing less than an ambitious, albeit peculiar, strategy for political warfare.2 In the eyes of the ‘ Free Russia’ spokesmen, however, Rosenberg’s usefulness was fatally impaired. On the one hand, his lassitude and ineffectiveness made him a futile spokesman 1

See also below, particularly Chapter X X V . 2 See above, Chapter III.

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P T. I V

for any cause, and his self-effacing meekness before the Führer viti­ ated his utility for any unorthodox approach. In addition, the sharp anti-Russian edge of his political concept was bound to be un­ acceptable to the other variants of political warfare.1 To their way of thinking, his thesis not only failed to take account of the Russians’ own aspirations but unfairly and unnecessarily included them among the enemies of the Reich instead of enlisting them, too, as allies. Finally, for some of the politically oriented, Rosenberg was too much the dyed-in-the-wool Nazi to be acceptable as their mouthpiece. Occasionally Rosenberg was none the less obliged, by dint of his position as Ostminister, to ‘ defend’ all the Eastern nationalities (without ethnic distinction) against the onslaught of more extreme fanatics. Thus he opposed the wholesale extermination of Soviet officials, as propounded by some officers in the SS, on grounds of expediency: such a massacre would ‘ politically and socially cause terrible revenge later on’.2 And in early 1942 he argued for an improvement in the status of prisoners of war, for the German Reich intends to continue the occupation of a large part of the former Soviet Union even after the end of the war and to develop its economy for our own ends. In this connection it is largely dependent on the co-operation of the population.3 But such formulations were exceptional. Indeed, it is ironical that Rosenberg should be considered an advocate of indigenous political development at all. Yet such was the constellation of forces in Berlin that even the Ostminister was often deemed a ‘ dangerous visionary’ and forced into a corner — by his fight with Koch, by his attempted ‘ alliance’ with the Army, or by the endeavours of some of his own staff — where he had to don the mantle of political warfare. At the same time, it is clear why he did not and could not become the guiding spirit of this campaign. The Foreign Office might likewise have been expected to assume a clear-cut position in favour of political warfare. It was prevented from doing so by its minister, von Ribbentrop, and by like-minded mediocrities; and by the negligible part it was permitted to play in Eastern affairs. Still, in the pre-invasion weeks and the first months 1 T w o weeks before the invasion, Rosenberg protested against the reported activities of Russian £migr£s in Warsaw, not because they were political but primarily because this was a Russian group seeking to organize a political nucleus abroad. (Grosskopf, report, June 19, 19 4 1, Document N G -49 90 * ; Boris Nicolaevsky, ‘ Porazhencheskoe dvizhenie 1 9 4 1-19 4 5 godov’, NovyiZhurnal [New York], xviii, 215.) 2 Rosenberg, ‘ Denkschrift Nr. 3 ’, April 25, 19 41, Document 10 20 -P S*. 3 Rosenberg to Keitel, February 28, 1942, Document 0 81-P S , T M W C , xxv, l57-

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thereafter, the Russland-Gremium gave some institutional shape to the ‘ political’ orientation, with the Reich’s last ambassador to Moscow, Count von der Schulenburg, emerging as the leading spokesman of this group.1 Later on, others who had seen foreign service in Moscow reflected similar views — such as Bräutigam in the Ostministerium, and Köstring in the Army. There is ample evidence that Schulenburg was one of the first to formulate an articulate plan of political warfare whose essence was a ‘ concrete programme to turn the invasion into a civil war in which the Russians themselves would help overthrow Stalin’ . One may accept as genuine the statement, presumably based on German documents, that the ambassador proposed (1) to announce that Germany had no territorial claims on Russia; (2) to permit the people of the conquered areas to set up their own governments; and (3) to recognize these governments as allies and encourage them to band together in an anti-Soviet government. In the early phases of the war, this probably represented the most clear-cut and far-reaching formulation of the ‘ Free Russia’ view. But, it has correctly been noted, for obvious reasons ‘ Schulenburg’s ideas were even more odious to Hitler than Rosenberg’s ’ . For all practical purposes the ex-ambassador and his friends were cut off from direct influence on the formulation and conduct of Ostpolitik. Their backstairs efforts were bound to be frustrating, sporadic, and difficult to make succeed.2 Arms and the Men With the diplomats shorn of political influence, the Army remained the major weight to be thrown into the balance of political warfare. It may appear paradoxical that from its midst should come the most influential of the political protagonists, for it had generally been precisely the ‘ utilitarian ’ military who had shied away from political issues. More than that, by training and background, 1 O n S c h u le n b u r g , see a b o v e , p p . 10, 134 ; also R u d o l f R a h n , Ruheloses Leben ( D ü s s e l d o r f : D ie d r ic h s , 1949), p p . 182-3. A m o n g th e in c re a s in g ly ‘ d islo y a l* d ip lo m a ts, a sp ecial p o sitio n w a s o c c u p ie d b y U lr ic h v o n H a s s e ll, w h o as e a r ly as J u l y 1941 realized th a t ‘ i f H it le r goes o n like th is a n d it b e c o m e s c le a r th at h is aim is to p u t R u s s ia u n d e r N a z i G a u le ite rs , re je c tin g th e c o -o p e ra tio n o f p a trio tic R u s s ia n s , a n d th en to sp lit it u p , S t a lin m a y y e t s u c c e e d in fo r m in g a p a trio tic fro n t a g a in st th e G e r m a n e n e m y * . ( The Von H assell D iaries [G a r d e n C i t y : D o u b le d a y , 1947], p p . 200-1.) 2 W a lla c e C a r r o ll, ‘ I t T a k e s a R u s s ia n to B e a t a R u s s ia n * , L ife ( C h ic a g o ), D e c e m b e r 19, 1949, p . 82 ; G u s t a v H ilg e r , ‘ T h e C a u s e s o f G e r m a n y ’ s P o litica l F a ilu r e in th e U k r a in e *, M S # ; [H e r w a r th ,] ‘ G e r m a n y a n d th e O c c u p a tio n o f

Russia*, M S *

506

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.

iv

the Generalstab and the professional cadres were alien to the entire concept of political warfare. A part of the explanation lies in the diversity of attitudes among the military. Indeed, there were only certain well-defined nuclei in the Army around which the advocates of ‘ political warfare’ clustered — above all, military government, the quartermaster-general’s offices, Wehrmacht Propaganda, and the various branches of intelligence concerned with the East. The rest of the military establishment — the OKW as well as the combat units — remained largely ignorant or sceptical of such endeavours. Moreover, some of the military espoused political warfare precisely as a result of their empirical observations in the East, as a device that was bound to redound to the benefit of the Army by weakening enemy morale and facilitating control of the occupied areas. The Army remained virtually the only candidate for the inception of political warfare because it was in a position of actual power, which it exercised in the East by dint of holding the front, ad­ ministering a large area, and controlling Soviet prisoners of war from among whom anti-Stalin leaders could be recruited. Further­ more, ‘ military necessity’ provided the Abwehr and Army Propa­ ganda with a convenient — and often inscrutable — cover for tasks which would otherwise have been impossible of fulfilment save under the closest surveillance of Hitler’s political organs. As time went on, to the extent that the officers’ corps became a hotbed of opposition and found itself displaced from influence, criticism of Nazi Ostpolitik found a fertile soil in which to thrive. Finally, many of the ‘ old Russia hands ’ with their less rigid, more knowledgeable, and more politically oriented approach wound up in the Army — either as professionals, like Generals Köstring and Niedermayer; or as civilians serving in such special branches as propaganda or intelligence. Most top Nazis in the military command quickly turned a deaf ear to political warfare projects. Keitel and Jodi were too narrow in outlook, too bereft of daring and imagination to approve of such schemes, which, moreover, were assumed to run counter to Hitler’s wishes. Even competent military leaders like Haider showed no interest in, or understanding of, the political potential of the conquered population.1 1 S e e H a id e r , D ia ry ( N u r e m b e r g : O ffice o f C h i e f o f C o u n s e l fo r W a r C r im e s , 1 9 4 6 ) , a n d h is H itler als Feldh err ( M u n ic h : D o m V e r la g , 1 9 4 9 ) , p p . 3 6 - 5 5 ; P e te r B o r , Gespräche mit H aider ( W ie s b a d e n : L im e s V e r la g , 1 9 5 0 ) ; a n d B . H . L id d e ll H a r t , The Germ an G enerals T a lk ( N e w Y o r k : M o r r o w , 1 9 4 8 ) . A c c o r d in g to T h o r w a l d , S t a u ffe n b e r g to ld H e r r e e a rly in 1 9 4 2 : ‘ H a i d e r ? H a id e r th in k s o n ly in m ilita ry te rm s. . . . N o t H a id e r o r K e ite l b u t u n fo r tu n a te ly m ilita ry

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There were among the ‘ old guard’ of the Army, officers who evidently had more feeling for the importance of the issue. Some, like Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch, were dismissed too early to be of decisive influence.1 Others, however, did not fear to speak out on a wide range of questions. Typical of them was General Eduard Wagner, Quartermaster-General, an excitable little man and by no means a convinced Nazi, who was responsible both for the flow of military supplies and for the administration of military government. One of the very first to raise the problems of occupation policy, even before the invasion, one of the first to deplore Koch’s methods — in September 1941 — and eventually a participant in the coup of July 20, 1944, against Hitler, Wagner was interested in political warfare as a means to a military end. Given the lack of German security troops for the rear areas of occupied Russia; the growth of the partisan movement and its threat to German supply operations; the Army’s heavy reliance on food from the local peasantry; and the insistence of his subordinates in the field that, with adroit political handling, the population could easily be split from the Soviet and attached to the German cause, Wagner repeatedly spoke his mind on the imperative of political action.2 Reports from the field underscored the significance of the military commandants and particularly the higher army rear area com­ manders as sources of insight into popular attitudes and reactions in the East. Not only did they acquire it by dint of their official functions, but the generic characteristics of this small group contri­ buted to their disproportionate ro le: they were largely senior officers and generals who might have retired, or remained in retire­ ment, had it not been for the second World W ar; men who were no longer entrusted with combat missions and could no longer look forward to promotions or careers. Having earned their ranks in earlier days, they had higher standards of judgment, and while their calibre and Zivilcourage varied considerably, many of them, unlike a large number of their younger and more ambitious col­ leagues, did not mind reporting home in terms that ran counter to accepted stereotypes, and often with an air of authoritativeness and finality. Admiral Canaris’ Abwehr was also among the foremost political action advocates. Even before the war, it had used emigres in intelligence w ork; while Canaris and his aides did not intrinsically n e c e s s ity is o u r a l l y / ( Jü r g e n T h o r w a ld , Wen sie verderben wollen [S t u t t g a r t : S t e in g r ü b e n -V e r la g , 1952], p . 69.) 1 S e e b e lo w , p . 516 . 2 S e e in te rv ie w G -29 ; H a id e r , Diary , v i, 442 ; v ii, 1 1 3 ; T h o r w a ld , op . eit.

pp. 69-70, 10 7 -11.

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favour the emigres’ political aspirations, they had no ideological barriers which prevented them from using and encouraging them. The very business of the Abwehr dictated a greater realism, which found expression in Canaris’ objections to the commissar decrees in May 1941 and to the subsequent abuse of prisoners of war. It is not difficult to see why the Abw'ehr ranged itself on the side of the ‘ politicals’ . Professional practice, opposition to the SS, and the pre-war Ukrainian gambit all contributed to the carry-over of an attitude at least passively supporting the political experiments which others promoted, and actively sponsoring some ostensibly intelligence operations which were actually political warfare moves.1 Unlike Rosenberg, the emphasis on non-Russians in its own work did not blind the Abwehr into forfeiting a chance to promote similar Russian units or succumbing to chauvinism. Another agency which took a determined stand on the side of the ‘ politicals’ was Fremde Heere Ost, the branch of the General Staff concerned with intelligence on the Soviet Union. By its very nature it was staffed by expert personnel and was highly concerned with Soviet prisoners of war. Its head, Colonel (later Major General) Reinhard Gehlen, was a skilled professional intelligence officer who operated smoothly, leaving barely a trace of his various incursions into political affairs. As the war unfolded, others under and close to him were active proponents of a ‘ new course’ in the East — men like Alexis von Roenne, a Baltic German who spoke fluent Russian and deeply abhorred Communism and, as a close friend of Stauffenberg’s, rose to an important position in the intelligence network until caught up in the conspiracy of July 20, 1944; and Heinz Danko Herre, who worked under Gehlen and was for a time General Köstring’s chief of staff.2 Finally, Wehrmacht Propaganda provided another vital centre for the proponents of political warfare. A major enterprise concerned with all forms of propaganda, it established in April 1941 a special staff for Soviet affairs (section WPr IV), whose actual work was greatly influenced by some of the junior officers. Captain Nikolas von Grote was a Baltic German journalist with a good knowledge of 1 S e e also a b o v e , p. 4 1 6 ; K a r l - H e i n z A b s h a g e n , C anaris ( S t u t t g a r t : U n io n D e u t s c h e r V e r la g , 1 9 4 9 ) , p p . 3 0 2 ff. ; in te rv ie w s G - 8 a n d G - 2 6 . O n th e v a rio u s fo rm a tio n s sp o n so re d b y th e A b w e h r (su c h as ‘ N i g h t i n g a l e 1 a n d ‘ R o la n d ’ fo r the U k r a in ia n s , ‘ T a m a r a ’ fo r th e G e o r g ia n s , a n d ‘ S h a m i l ’ fo r the N o r t h C a u c a s ia n s ), see also p p . 1 1 4 - 1 8 . 2 S e e also T h o r w a l d , op. cit. p p . 4 4 - 6 , 5 3 - 8 ; G e o r g e F is c h e r , ‘ S o v ie t D e fe c tio n in W o r l d W a r I I ’ , P h .D . d isse rta tio n , H a r v a r d U n iv e r s it y , 1 9 5 1 , p p . 2 2 4 - 7 . K a r l M ic h e l, Ost und West ( Z ü r ic h : T h o m a s - V e r la g , 1 9 4 7 ) , th o u g h b a se d o n so m e p e rso n a l k n o w le d g e , c a n n o t be c o n sid e re d a tr u s t w o r th y so u rce . T h o r w a l d ’s a c c o u n t fre q u e n tly lean s o n H e r r e ’ s d ia rie s, w h o s e in flu e n ce h e m a y w e ll e x a g g e ra te .

CH. XXI I I

Cast and Credos

5°9

Russian affairs and a keen awareness of the value of political propa­ ganda (partly acquired in the French campaign in 1940). He was one of the first to urge the slogan, ‘ Liberation, Not Conquest’ on German policy-makers. Yet his approach was somewhat more sophisticated than that of the straight ‘ politicals’, for unlike most of his colleagues he stressed the limits of what political warfare, or any propaganda tactics, could do in the absence of a broader framework of appropriate action— Tatpropaganda, or ‘ propaganda by doing things’ . He realized that the idea of an exile government or libera­ tion committee was in itself likely to have less motive power than a political appeal coupled with specific reforms in agriculture, private property, and local government. All the while, von Grote was an un­ emotional, largely ‘ utilitarian ’ advocate of political warfare, a section head whose primary job was to help the German armies win the war. In the spring of 1942 Aktivpropaganda activities were re­ organized, and WPr IV came under the immediate purview of Colonel Hans Martin, an old and loyal follower of Goebbels and apparently a mediocrity. The main effect of this reorganization on the conduct of political warfare, since Martin did not obstruct the work of Grote’s group, was the transfer of an old villa at Viktoria­ strasse 10 in Berlin from the Propaganda Ministry to WPr IV. This was the secret compound in which were harboured a few select captives of particular interest to the propagandists, including Stalin’s son, several recalcitrant generals, and later the Russian mainsprings of the Vlasov movement. WPr had its opponents of political warfare; it had its ample share of determined N azis; it, too, produced leaflets of distinctly bigoted contents and of questionable propaganda value. But it also came to harbour such prototypes of the active ‘ Free Russia’ advo­ cates as Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt. Born and educated in pre-1917 Russia in a German merchant family, he had left the country after having fought against the Reds in the ‘ White’ Army. Often accused of pro-British sympathies, he remained a relatively unknown captain, who none the less — partly by dint of his own efforts, partly by accident of the position which he happened to occupy — wielded con­ siderable influence when the political warfare issue came to a head.1 1 Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 82-94, who perhaps idealizes Grote somewhat (cf. Mikhail Kitaev, ‘ Russkoe osvoboditernoe dvizhenie’ , M S * [Munich, 1949], pp. 32-5) ; Fischer, Soviet Opposition to Staliny pp. 18, 58-60, who gives a most favourable portrayal of Strik-Strikfeldt ; Nicolaevsky, op. cit. xviii, 230-3 ; xix, 223-4 J interviews G -4, G -23. It is the Viktoriastrasse compound which in post­ war literature has been given the apocryphal name of ‘ Psychological Laboratory’ . The compound burned out in the Allied air attack of November 22, 1943. Thorwald’s image of Grote seems to be based largely on the memoirs of his former aide, Eugen Dürksen, ‘ Persönlichkeiten der Abt. O K W -W P r.’ , M S * , IfZ.

G.R.R.— 2 L

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The ‘ politicals’ embraced some of the wisest and most decent elements within the Nazi government machine. It should be re­ membered, however, that they also included some of the most extreme opportunists and hypocrites. Equally important, the advocates of political warfare had not always taken their stand as a result of a realistic appraisal of the situation. As the war progressed, some came to see in political promises a panacea that could undo the damage done in the East, restore the broken authority of the Reich, make the Red Army forget the nature of its foe and defect en masse. Just as the official creed denied the use of a bona-fide political approach, so others naively saw in it alone the answer to the in­ creasingly ominous pressures in the East — and a cheap solution at that, involving neither material expenditures nor genuine forfeiture of prerogatives. In the last analysis, political warfare had only a limited radius of effectiveness. It could be an appealing theme — but only as one of several in a well-constructed, consistent fugue. It could not be ex­ pected to score successfully so long as practice and personal observation belied everything it promised. Even in the face of a strong nationalpatriotic elan in Russia, provoked by the war on both sides of the front lines, an overly simple preoccupation with political propaganda alone was more a mirror of wishful thinking than a reliable guide to the hearts and minds of the people. Other non-political grievances and emotions were of at least equal, and often greater, urgency. In the earliest stages of the invasion, the resort to political warfare might have provided the slim margin that could have spelled the difference between victory and defeat. As time progressed and German practice in commission and omission became more manifest, political warfare had greater obstacles to overcome — hindrances originating largely in Germany and soon to become insuperable. Still the efforts continued. An assemblage of men of various rank and station rallied to oppose official Ostpolitik. Often isolated from each other, frequently disagreeing, inarticulate, sometimes incon­ sistent, cowardly, irrational, and insincere, they began slowly to create informal circles of friends to work towards a change of policy. The resistance to change was tremendous, particularly when it involved subverting a basic facet of Nazi policy. The ‘ politicals’ faced a formidable task.

C H A P T E R XXI V

THE UPHILL ST R U G G LE We have had tremendous military successes, but we still have no constructive plan for Russia. We come as conquerors where we should come as liberators.— J oseph G o e b b e l s , September 1941

The Battle of Memoranda T he weapon most frequently employed in the internal German campaign to make the war and occupation politically meaningful and palatable to the Soviet population was the pen. Uncounted memo­ randa and reports were drafted, forwarded, endorsed, filed — and often lost and forgotten — during the four years of the war. Written proposals were not so numerous before June 22, 1941, since much of the pre-invasion planning was on an intra-office level, and negotiating was largely o ral; even so, some of the early projects submitted were discarded as either fantastic or detrimental to German interests. An example is the attempt made by Rudolf von Knüpffer, a Russian of German descent, who, though closely connected with rightist Russian emigre currents, was none the less acceptable to the Rosenberg-Leibbrandt group. In May 1941 Knüpffer submitted a memorandum urging the establishment of a Russian Repräsentanz — a representative body that could ‘ talk to ’ the Russian people. Thereupon Leibbrandt made Knüpffer his liaison man to the Propaganda Ministry : the former could conceive of no other variant of Russian political warfare than sheer propa­ ganda.1 Later Knüpffer became head of the Great Russian section in the Rosenberg Ministry — something of an ugly duckling amid a flock of ‘ Russia-haters’. His subsequent memoranda were of little impact; by then more influential quarters — notably the RusslandGremium of the Foreign Office — were also promoting the argument that what the Reich needed in the East were not puppets or mer­ cenaries but genuine Russian patriots. An equally futile effort was exerted by Walter von Conradi, a young foreign service officer specializing in Soviet affairs and temporarily assigned to the supervision of radio propaganda to Russia. In November 1941 a memorandum by him emphasized the need for a positive political programme which was ‘ popular, 1 Interview G - 23. For efforts regarding prisoners and forced labour, see above, Chapters X I X and X X .

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.

iv

effective [zugkräftig] and elastic’. ‘ In the long run it is impossible to leave the population of the occupied areas in the East in the dark about the trend of the new political order.’ The new order, as he saw it, would include Russia in a United Europe and give the popula­ tion assurances against German territorial acquisitions and the return of landlords.1 Needless to say, the memorandum was promptly forgotten. Another endeavour which provoked much wider attention got under way after the attack began. It was launched by Edwin Erich Dwinger, a well-known German author. The account of his experiences in Russia during and after the first World War, as well as several strongly anti-Bolshevik novels published between the wars, had earned him widespread fame. Under the Nazis, Dwinger became an SS officer and a protege of Himmler, and in June 1941 he joined the march eastwards as a war correspondent. It was by Himmler’s personal wishes that Dwinger was assigned to the head­ quarters of von dem Bach-Zelewski, the SS staff due to enter Moscow. His first impressions apparently conformed strictly to the Untermensch pattern — or so they appeared in print. Indeed, a German professor on a non-political mission in Kiev felt constrained to write home : The twenty years of Bolshevik rule have had a far smaller influence on the psyche of the population than I had previously assumed. Dwinger’s reports on this subject, which have repeatedly been published in the press, are a crude error which has done endless harm.12 And yet even Dwinger’s articles and especially some of his later classified memoranda were deemed so heretical as to provoke an outburst of indignation among his erstwhile protectors in the SS. For a while he was silenced by a strong ‘ suggestion’ from the RSH A not to meddle in Ostpolitik. The fate of the author — assuredly no enemy of the regime — gave food for thought to those who wished to affirm that the Easterners were human beings whose feelings and aspirations could not be brushed aside with impunity.3 1 Conradi, ‘ Aufzeichnung’, November 17, 1941, M/L 474*, CRS. 2 Paul Thompson, ‘ Politischer Bericht’, October 19, 1942, Document 303-PS, TMWC, xxv, 344. 5 Buchardt, pp. 217-19; Jürgen Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen (Stutt­ gart : Steingrüben-Verlag, 1952), p. 260 ; Edwin Erich Dwinger, Wiedersehen mit Soujetrussland (Jena : Diederichs, 1943), pp. 230-1. See also Dwinger’s G eneral Wlassow (Frankfurt : Dikreiter, 1951), a fictional account in which he describes his own role in thinly disguised form (e.g . pp. 48-51) ; it is impossible to use this book as a historical source. In one of his famous war-time speeches, Himmler attacked Dwinger without naming him (see Document 1919-PS, TMWC, xxix, 117). See also below, p. 585.

CH. X X I V

The Uphill Struggle

513

Another man to whose political change of heart the experiences in the East contributed significantly was Theodor Oberländer. An economics professor at the University of Königsberg, he had the reputation of being a staunch Nazi. Assigned to the Abwehr, he was originally attached to a Ukrainian collaborator unit. When the turn-about in Berlin with regard to the Ukrainian nationalists led to his temporary withdrawal, he submitted the first of several of his war-time memoranda, which is revealing for the change he was beginning to undergo. The attitude of the population [he wrote] usually deteriorates con­ siderably within a few weeks after the arrival of the German troops. Why is this ? We always betray an inner rejection, even a hatred of this country and a superciliousness towards its people — behaviour which precludes all positive collaboration. After citing examples of Ukrainians who had been abused ‘ mis­ takenly’ and prisoners who were shot in full view of the civilian population, he continued : The rural population knows nothing about its future. . . . The requisitioning of the last hen is psychologically as unwise as it is economic­ ally unwise to kill pregnant sows and the last calf. . . . A policy of suppression leads inevitably to a huge machinery of officialdom and to minimal economic performance. . . . Oberländer’s memorandum was passed on privately by some of his friends. Captain Pfleiderer, formerly a German diplomat in Moscow, in forwarding some copies, added that by their behaviour German troops were provoking hostility; and ‘ that which one can forgive the soldier, one cannot pardon the civilian official’ .1 After the failure of the Ukrainian gambit, Oberländer shifted to the Abwehr-sponsored units composed of prisoners and refugees from the Caucasus. Now an eager proponent of ‘ liberation legions’ , he became inspector — in effect, commander — of the so-called Bergmann (Mountaineer) regiment, whose very existence was exceptional. The relatively easy acceptance of this unit in Nazi circles was due largely to the fact that it was an intelligence-promoted enterprise and that ‘ it was without obvious political background or 1 Theodor Oberländer, ‘ Voraussetzungen für die Sicherheit des Nachschubes und die Gewinnung höchster Ernährungsüberschüsse in der Ukraine’, October 28, 1941, and Karl-Georg Pfleiderer, covering letter, November 13, 19 41, Document U.S.S.R.-218* ; interview G-25. As the title indicates, Oberländer’s argument was still oriented entirely towards the assurance of security and food. Pfleiderer’s letter included recommendations for the restriction of the German administrative apparatus and preparatory measures ‘ to give the Ukraine certain political contours’.

514

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M . IV

purpose Here Oberländer’s development continued : the more he had occasion to meet ‘ Eastern men’, the more his opinion deviated from the Nazi norm. In the fall of 1942 he circulated a new memo­ randum urging, above all, the recognition of ‘ psychology’ as a co-equal branch, along with arms and economy, in the struggle for victory. Many German endeavours in the East, he felt, failed not because of what was demanded but of how it was demanded. He therefore proceeded to stress what he deemed the characteristics of the Ukrainians (the people he knew best and considered most important to enlist on the German side) and to present a programme of reforms which he believed would dispose them in Germany’s favour.1 In June 1943, on the second anniversary of the invasion, he sent off yet a third Denkschrift. In proper circumlocutions it asserted that the New Europe could not do without the help of the Slavic peoples, and that therefore an end of the Untermensch era, a speedier agrarian reform, a more tolerant cultural policy, and some political pronouncement regarding the future were imperative. If the required reversal in Ostpolitik fails to materialize, the Soviet slogan of a ‘ second Fatherland War’ . . . will be the bitter reality of tomorrow. . . . We are apparently at the last moment at which we might still take advantage of the opportunity . . . and could, in spite of all errors already committed, make the Eastern population into our and Europe’s ally. Oberländer could not suspect that this paper came only two weeks after Hitler’s decision to halt all political employment of Soviet personnel in German hands. Himmler promptly demanded Ober­ länder’s arrest. Although this action was averted, the Army dismissed him, and almost to the end of the war he remained in disgrace.2 Another ‘ Abwehr professor’, Hans Koch, a strong proponent of Ukrainian statehood and a liberal church policy in the East, was likewise retired from active political service. If Schulenburg and Hilger may be considered spokesmen for the genuine ‘ Free Russia’ wing, Hans Koch was their opposite number in the ‘ Free Ukraine’ orientation — unselfish, impractical, perhaps emotionally involved. His well-meant but ‘ clumsy’ handling of the Stetsko coup in L ’vov at the outbreak of war, and his honest and astute reports from the Ukraine in the fall of 1941 made him persona non grata. Upon 1 Oberländer, ‘ Die Ukraine und die militärischen (psychologischen) Notwen­ digkeiten der weiteren Kriegführung im Osten, besonders im Kaukasus’ , n.d. [September 1942 ?]#.

2 Oberländer, ‘ Bündnis oder Ausbeutung ?’ June 22, 1943* (excerpts in Thor­ wald, op. cit. pp. 241-3) ; interviews G-6, G-9, G-25 ; Buchardt, pp. 220-2.

CH. X X I V

The Uphill Struggle

515

direct request by Koch’s R K U , the army withdrew him, and for the rest of the war, he was kept at an insignificant post.1 The Lessons of Experience As they came into contact with the situation in the East, Army officers composed some of the most incisive memoranda and pro­ posals. Many of them, in the early part of the war especially, touched only tangentially on the issues of political warfare. FieldMarshal von Kluge, for instance, after ten weeks of war issued an order sharply condemning plundering and wanton requisitions by German troops, and demanding the prompt and complete cessation of all abuse under threat of summary punishment.2 Thinly disguised as an effort to tighten army discipline, in reality it was an early attempt — prompted by some of the junior staff officers of Fourth Army — to evidence more consideration for the indigenous population. Even Field-Marshal von Reichenau, one of the most devoted Nazis in the Army, urged Hitler to permit the establishment of Ukrainian and Belorussian divisions — a move intended primarily to bring relief in military manpower but inevitably fraught with political implications.3 Here was evidence from early in the war that the advocacy of collaboration was in no sense restricted to non-Nazi quarters, even though the emphasis was still on military rather than political exploitation. The first major attempt on the part of an officer group consciously to push through the concept of political warfare was made in the fall of 1941 in the area of Army Group Centre, when the collaborating city administration of Smolensk sent Hitler a memorandum suggest­ ing political and administrative rights for the indigenous officials.4 1 Interviews G-6, G-20 ; Hans Koch, ‘ Der sowjetische Nachlass in der Ukraine’, October 1941, DW 20*, CRS ; Hans Koch, letter to author, June 2, 1955. See also above, pp. 119-22. Hans Koch was only one of several former Austrian officers who spoke out for a change of policy. Others were Colonel Bisanz, an old advocate of Ukrainian nationalism and a friend of Mel’nyk ; General Lahousen, Canaris’ aide ; and the former Austrian envoy to Berlin, Richard Riedl, who in early 1943 submitted a book-length memorandum seeking to prove, in circuitous and confused manner, that since both the restoration of the ‘ old Russia’ and the pacification of a German-colonized, stateless Russia were impossible, the only solution was a splintering of Russia into constituent pro-German states, much along the lines of the original Rosenberg thesis. (Richard Riedl, ‘ Die russische Frage ; Gedanken zur Neugestaltung Osteuropas’, MS, Lib. 45*, CRS.) 2 Interviews G-3, G-32. 3 Von Reichenau, ‘ Denkschrift zur Ukrainefrage’ [January 1942], W i/ID .58*, C R S ; Alfred Kesselring, Soldat bis zum letzten Tag (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag,

1953), p - 136. 4 Even earlier, in mid-September, the X X X I X Corps had submitted a memo­ randum seeking to prove that German expectations of easy victory had been nai ve.

516

Political Warfare

pt. iv

Thereupon a memorandum by Strik-Strikfeldt, then an interpreter and intelligence officer, was forwarded to Field-Marshal von Bock, commander of the army group, largely through the efforts of Colonel Henning von Tresckow, Bock’s brilliant and energetic operations officer. This memorandum rather ambitiously urged the formation of a Russian ‘ army of liberation’ , the creation of a Russian provisional government-in-exile, and the improvement of conditions in the prisoner-of-war camps, where its troops would be recruited. In November the proposal was forwarded to Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch, the head of the OKH. Though the original document is not available, there is reliable testimony that Brauchitsch made a marginal notation that he considered the project ‘ decisive’ for the prosecution of the war. While he had apparently been quite ambivalent on the treatment of the population at the outset, by late fall failure to complete the campaign spurred him to reconsider some basic policy matters. However, Brauchitsch himself was ousted by Hitler in mid-December 1941, and the Strikfeldt project languished.1 With the first ‘ legitimate’ effort to create a Russian counter­ army and government thus doomed, Strikfeldt shifted to oral and written persuasion. He had two of his lectures before a General Staff training course printed up ‘ at private expense’ , because they could not be released under the imprimatur of the OKW, and had them distributed among influential officers. They provide tangible evidence of his early attitude.2 The first lecture sought to demon­ strate that, according to intelligence tests given in prisoner com­ pounds, Soviet captives were not inferior to other Europeans, and that, while they had few articulate ideas about the political future of their country, many of them were strongly patriotic. Germany, Strikfeldt concluded, faced the choice of proceeding with or without the people : it could not succeed without them if only because such a course required a measure of force which it was incapable of marshalling. The second pamphlet began with the axiom that ‘ the [German] but that there was a potential of disaffection among the Soviet population which a clever German policy could exploit. This would require, among other moves, cancellation of the ‘ commissar decree’, proclamation of some political plan for the future — perhaps even a Russian government, and announcement of policy on private property and other critical issues. (XXXIX A.K., ‘ Denkschrift über die Möglichkeiten einer Erschütterung des bolschewistischen Widerstandes von Innen her*, September 18, 1941, Document NOKW-2413*.) 1 Strik-Strikfeldt, letter to author, December 19, 1953 ; David Chavchavadze, ‘ The Vlassov Movement’, MS# (Yale University, 1950), pp. 18-19; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 82-3. 2 Hauptmann Strik-Strikfeldt, D er russische M ensch and Unser Verhalten zum Russen [Berlin, n.d.], ‘ Nur zur persönlichen Unterrichtung’.

CH. X X I V

The Uphill Struggle

517

soldier must distinguish between friend and foe’ : the Russian could be either, depending on German policy. When some officers accused Strikfeldt of ‘ too much psychology’, his reply was, ‘ Rather a little more psychology and a little less blood’. He did not seek to idealize the Russian; in fact, he bluntly depicted the elements of degradation, partly the result of a generation of Bolshevism, which according to his thesis was the real enemy — so recognized and fought by many Russians long before the German soldiers arrived. ‘ If we speak of Untermenschen . . . we have only the Bolshevik in mind. Never should we refer thus to the terrorized mass of Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Cossacks, who have been and remain the objects of the bloody Bolshevik system.’ The Russian was by nature no mercenary and must therefore be given a cause to fight for ; the Easterners already attached to the German Army all wanted to know ‘ not only what they are fighting against but also what they are fighting fo r’. In ousting the Bolsheviks and reintegrating Russia into Europe, Strikfeldt concluded, Germany and Russia had a common purpose over which they could ‘ shake hands ’ in alliance. Coming in the heyday of the Untermensch phase, these ideas provoked a sharp exchange of correspondence and attacks from the extremists; Strikfeldt himself escaped with a mere admonition to desist. While the problems he had been discussing were gaining rapid recognition, the prevailing approach to them had not yet changed. The new propaganda directive released in January 1942, with Jod i’s explicit consent, confirmed that since the beginning of the Eastern campaign, OKW has been making efforts to use positive propaganda slogans. For political and economic reasons, however, psychological warfare is relatively limited in the range of its contents. For instance, a proclamation of land distribution and introduction of unrestricted private property have been suggested by many authorities in the field but are not yet possible in this form. . . .* Meanwhile individuals in positions of greater authority than Strikfeldt or Oberländer began to speak out under the stimulus of the budding partisan movement. To the military government officers, whose slim, second-rate forces were often denuded for combat needs at moments of crisis, the partisans, though still weak and poorly organized, were a serious potential menace. I f the guerrillas could terrorize or recruit the civilians who were increasingly alienated by German conduct, then the key to keeping the partisans impotent was the satisfaction of rank-and-file aspirations in the occupied territories. In some instances the partisans were the ! OKW/WPr IV, circular, January 8, 1942, OKW/653* CRS.

518

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actual shock that stimulated such reasoning; in others, they provided a legitimate cloak of military necessity to prior advocates of political warfare. Some such reports came as early as August 1941 : [It is] possible to organize with very minor concessions a population which can be very useful. If this is not done, there is the danger that the peasants . . . will fall prey to Communist propaganda and support the partisan movement.1 In November an astute memorandum was forwarded by General von Unruh, an energetic old professional then commanding a rear area of Army Group Centre. His theme w as: ‘ We have trusted the sword and thus far have neglected the spiritual weapon of propaganda. The Russian has had no success with the sword but has utilized the other weapon that much more successfully.’ Requisitions, forced labour, starvation, and absence of political commitments were antagonizing the population which, he reported, was being intimi­ dated by Soviet partisans. Moreover, there were too few German troops to cope with them ; hence the goal of German propaganda must be to win the Russian people to co-operate with us, to use the mayors for our purposes, to give them prestige in the eyes of the people, to give the people what we can give them now, and comfort them with the prospect of a better future under German guidance. Freedom of religion, social welfare measures, release of prisoners of war, division of land, and good personal relations between German soldiers and the population were among the specific measures Unruh advocated. His reasoned argument marked a new departure, born as it was of necessity, not compassion, and coming with the authoritativeness of his personality.2 Only after the mid-winter crisis did such views become more customary in army circles. The most telling of all, perhaps, was the report submitted in March 1942 by General von Schenkendorff, commander of the vast Army Group Centre Rear Area. Concen­ trating on anti-partisan warfare (which by then had become a real problem), the general argued that psychological warfare was as important as arms in fighting the guerrillas : The prerequisite of effective anti-partisan warfare [he wrote] is the willingness of the Russian population to be friends. If this is not achieved or maintained by the German troops, the partisans will have the popu­ lation’s support in recruitment and supplies. In spite of severe [German] 1 Army report, August 24, 1941, cited in Wallace Carroll, ‘ It Takes a Russian to Beat a Russian’, L ife (Chicago), December 19, 1949, p. 81. 2 Koriick 559 to AOK 4, Ic, November 23, 1941, 13512/3*, CRS.

CH. XXI V

The Uphill Straggle

519

economic measures . . . the majority of the population is loyal . . . [but] thus far we have done little to win its sympathy. O n e m u s t p u t g o a ls befo re t h e ir e y e s , goals which they understand and for which it is worth fighting. These are (1) the establishment of a national Russia free from Bolshevism, closely dependent on Germany, under a N a t io n a l G o v e r n m e n t ‘ for peace and freedom’. Its western borders will be determined by our settlement plans. Even a sham government should have a strong propaganda effect. . . . The Russian will not adjust to a Russia reduced to a German colony . . . (2) an agrarian reform dissolving the collective farms . . . (3) religious freedom. . . d Forwarded to Kluge, Haider, and Wagner, this report attracted considerable attention, partly because it stated explicitly what others had timidly implied, partly because it was based not on compassion or preconceptions but on first-hand experience. Indeed, such early reports as Strikfeldt’s and Schenkendorff’s in substance presented all the arguments that subsequent mountains of memoranda were to reiterate in hundreds of ways. Their efforts symbolized a new spirit, yet their results were virtually n il: the official line still stood. Civilian Efforts The f oreign Office had its own share of political warfare advo­ cates. Both the Russland-Gremium in Berlin and the Foreign Office Observers in the field (VAA’s) almost continuously recom­ mended various political projects, which remained on paper.2 As early as January 30, 1942, Gustav Hilger, ex-counsellor of the German embassy in Moscow, submitted a memorandum to Ribbentrop urging a fundamental change in occupation policy and the treatment of prisoners. Von Ribbentrop [Hilger recalls] read it and completely lost his temper. ‘ What do you think you are doing ? ’ he screamed at me. ‘ If the Führer finds out what you wrote in this memorandum he’ll have you shot at once. And rightly so. . . 1 Bfh. Rückw. Heeresgebiet Mitte, ‘ Vorschläge zur Vernichtung der Partisanen im rückw. Heeresgebiet und in den rückw. Armeegebieten’, March 18, 1942, Document 1685-PS*. For a hostile portrayal of Schenkendorff, cf. Karl I. Albrecht, S ie aber werden die W elt zerstöre« (Munich : Herbert Neuner, 1954), p. 256. 2 See also above, pp. 328, 478. One of the most observant and prolix VAA’s and an experienced writer, Bossi-Fedrigotti, reported in January 1942, for instance, that Soviet propaganda successes in the occupied areas were attributable to German conduct, and urged more propaganda and the formation of Russian troop units on the German side. The argument was one of expediency : ‘ Every Russian who fights for us saves German blood’. (VAA Bossi-Fedrigotti, ‘ Bericht’, January 15, 1942, AA 19*, CRS.) 3 Gustav Hilger and Alfred Meyer, The Incompatible A llies (New York Macmillan, T953), p. 339.

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In the face of the seemingly immutable official position, the stream of such arguments was bound to dry up. The only further Foreign Office attempt — which eventually backfired — was Schulenburg’s effort to put emigres to work as spokesmen for their (in this instance, Caucasian) fellow-nationals. For once in agreement, Hitler and Rosenberg opposed the venture, and its result, as was shown, was the elimination of the Auswärtiges Amt from Eastern affairs.1 The Ostministerium continued to pipe its own tune. Occasionally Rosenberg was sufficiently aroused to request policy changes with regard to prisoners, Ostarbeiter, Ukrainians. Among his sub­ ordinates a plethora of memoranda continued to be drafted and circulated, many of them involving schemes of propaganda warfare. In particular, a lengthy collective report known as the Grosse Denk­ schrift— the ‘ great memorandum’ — was compiled by several section heads, including Mende, Kleist, Markull, and MilweSchroeden. In retrospect, some of its contributors acknowledge that it was ill-calculated to convince the realist-politicians : though concluding with a recommendation for a change of policy, it consisted largely of a pseudo-academic analysis of ‘ forces’ at work in the East. Rosenberg asserted that he submitted it to Hitler, who ostensibly passed it off by declaring that any change of policy could be con­ sidered only from strength, never from weakness; and that such a change must therefore await new German victories — which no longer came. Instead Bormann issued his famous directive regarding the restriction of cultural, sanitary, and educational services in the East. Rosenberg meekly sought to object, but in vain.12 The ‘ great memorandum’, a semi-official document submitted by informed experts, was not in the same category as the private, independent, and unsolicited reports and recommendations which came in from the field, the Army, the Abwehr, and others. Memo­ 1 See above, Chapter VII. 2 On the ‘ great memorandum’, see Peter Kleist, Zwischen H itler und Sta lin (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950), pp. 206-7, who appears to exaggerate his own role considerably ; also interviews G - 1 1 , G -23 ; and letter from Mende to author, November 19, 1953. For the Bormann directive and reaction to it, see above, p p . 457-8.

Other noteworthy efforts at the same time included an address by another of the ‘ Abwehr professors’, Werner Markert, in March 1942. Unlike the speeches of the remaining participants, such as Rosenberg and Leibbrandt, Markert’s was strikingly detached and cool in tone, and his survey of Russian history, while including many a questionable thesis, was far from both the Hitler and the Rosen­ berg views. (Werner Markert, ‘ Geschichtsbildende Kräfte im Osten’, O stauf­ gaben der Wissenschaft [Munich : RMfdbO., 1943], ‘ For official use only’, pp. 10 0 -15. Curiously enough, this address is omitted from the public version of the same conference, Probleme des Ostraumes [Berlin : RMfdbO., 1942].)

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randa of this latter type also originated within the Ostministerium. The Bräutigam Aufzeichnung of October 1942 has repeatedly been cited as a model of outspoken criticism. In the same vein, although in a different spirit, was the Fälle-Sammlung — a collection of cases documenting abuses and failures of German policy. Its conclusions reportedly bore in the direction of articulate political warfare : the campaign had meaning only if it included the liberation of the Soviet peoples, a goal which would ‘ make allies of the Soviet masses, without whom we are bound to choke’ in the vast expanses of the East.1 The wording reflected the utilitarian nature of the proposal: the purpose of the slogans was not liberation but victory. Yet even this argument of self-interest was rejected. Protests and complaints grew in volume and variety as the war dragged on. The Italian commander-in-chief in Russia, Marshal Giovanni Messe, also in the spring of 1942, urged a radical change of occupation policy.12 A professor of palaeontology, temporarily in Kiev, volunteered his findings after a brief survey of the situation : What have we accomplished in a year ? All groups have been re­ buffed. The initially sincere and honest sympathy that we met has gradually yielded to profound disillusionment. At present only fear of the Bolsheviks and their revenge keeps large groups of the population on our side. . . . [But] it is not too late to find a modus for co-operation: . . . We must find groups and strata of the people among whom we can find support.3 Most of these reports contained no hint of either anti-Nazi sentiments or even premonitions of defeat. Convinced and com­ mitted fanatics, well-known for their anti-Western, anti-democratic, or anti-Semitic utterances and activities, could then and later be found among those arguing for a change — if not of long-range aspirations, at least of all public evidence of such goals and certainly of short-term tactics. Prominent writers who had published widely joined the chorus, such as Giselher Wirsing, one of the mainstays of the so-called Tatkreis, a group of nationalists, who had written in a hostile vein about Britain and the United States. In August 1942 he submitted a 24-page report on the future of German rule in Russia. It was hardly motivated by a sudden conversion but 1 Cited in Kleist, op. cit. p. 207. 2 See Giovanni Messe, D er K rieg im Osten (Zürich : Thomas-Verlag, 1948), pp. 69-77. 3 Document 303-PS, TMWC, xxv, 343-5. See also Ren£ LeGrand Roy, ‘ Le facteur politique dans la croisade antiboIch£vique\ V oix des peuples (Geneva), ix, no. 3 (March 15, i 9 4 2)> P- J3 4 -

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rather by the realization that the abandonment of colonialism, the promotion of ‘ civil w ar’ between people and leaders, and the for­ mation of a ‘ liberation movement ’ of Soviet nationals on the German side — in short, a comprehensive political programme for the East — offered the only way out of the impasse into which he saw Germany rushing.1 By m id-1942 this calculated approach had become widespread in thoroughly Nazi circles. A ‘ high Luftwaffe officer’ (who, his fascist post-war protectors add proudly, ‘ never belonged to the [anti-Hitler] resistance’) in a memorandum strutting with ‘ parallels’ between Communism and Americanism and with anti-Jewish remarks, took cognizance of the rise of Russian nationalism. ‘ Mili­ tarily’, he argued, ‘ we can down the Bolsheviks ; however, RussianBolshevik nationalism we shall never overcome.’ Hence ‘ we can in the long run hold on to Russia only if along with our own needs we also take account of the Russians’.12 Thus, curiously, insistence on the ‘ perpetual danger’ of Russian nationalism proved to be a double-edged sw ord: it provided an argument for its Himmler­ style suppression, but it also inspired others, accepting it as a constant, to recommend its exploitation for German ends.3 The various arguments for a change of policy thus originated in diverse quarters and pursued varying lines of reasoning. What all their authors had in common, it seems, was a realization that, because the essence of German Eastern policy was an organic product of the Nazi outlook, a ‘ frontal attack’ was as futile as it was 1 Giselher Wirsing, interrogation, Document NG-422I* ; interviews G-15, G-32. Ostensibly, Wirsing was later instrumental in winning Schellenberg to a pro-Vlasov position (Thorwald, op. cit. p. 419). See his testimony, Case XI, Engl, transcript, pp. 12079-90. On Wirsing’s background, see also Armin Mohler, Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland (Stuttgart : Vowerk-Verlag, 1950). Many of Wirsing’s writings appeared under the pseudonym of ‘ Vindex*— e.g. his anti-Soviet book, Die Politik des Oelfleeks (Berlin : Deutscher Verlag, 1944). See also his ‘ pro-Eastern * articles in the official propaganda organ, Signal (Berlin) : ‘ Kämpfer für ein neues Europa*, August 15, 1942 ; ‘ Die Freiwilligen des Ostens*, August 15, 1943 ; and the special issue of December 1943 devoted to ‘ Eastern troops’. 2 ‘ Russischer Nationalismus im 2. Weltkrieg’, Nation Europa (Coburg), 1953, no. 3, pp. 15-19. 3 A dispatch of the VAA with Ninth Army, dated September 1942, likewise stressed the rising tide of Russian nationalism : ‘ Inevitably the Russian volunteers start to wonder, regardless of their personal fate, about the future of the Russian people. . . . An inscription scribbled on a wall in Smolensk, “ Neither these [the Germans] nor those [the Soviets] but our own !” exemplifies this trend. . . . The Russian national idea is too strong and dangerous in its potentialities to be terrorized out of existence by denial and oppression. . . . Hence we must take the national forces of the Russian people under our control or protection before they turn against us.* (VAA with AOK 9, ‘ Der russische Nationalgedanke’, September 5, 1942, DW 34*, CRS.)

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dangerous to the initiators. observer),

523

On the other hand (writes a German

the authors of the various memoranda had not sufficiently recognized to what extent the German Ostkonzeption was identical with Hitler’s will, and how dangerous was even the most carefully worded fundamental criticism and hence how futile even the most cleverly grounded proposals. Some efforts even led to a stiffening of the official course and to suspicion of all criticism. ‘ In the end, one did not even want to hear the word “ political” mentioned in connection with the Eastern peoples, whose treatment, according to the spokesmen for the official line, was purely an administrative matter.’ 1 At the same time, the insight of many of the most influential observers remained (to use Marshal Messe’s term) ‘ platonic’ , since they lacked courage or channels or initiative to convert belief into action. A Russian de Gaulle? At times, the quest for a ‘ new approach’ went beyond the composition of memoranda. One of its forms was the search for a leader or symbol around which a ‘ liberation movement’ could coalesce. Though officially taboo — especially for the Great Russians — political representation was informally promoted by the Rosenberg and Canaris groups, as illustrated by the utilization of the OUN in 1941 and the Cossack, Karachai, and Kabarda ‘ selfgovernments’ late in 1942. Even these, however, were only semilicit, special cases. The big problem remained. In 1941, when the Germans were advancing rapidly, there was little inclination in responsible quarters to give serious consideration to plans for a government-in-exile or even a sham liberation committee. By contrast, early 1942 saw the genesis of several parallel efforts which may be labelled the ‘ pre-Vlasov’ stage of a Russian liberation committee on the German side. The first suggestions came almost as an afterthought to a dis­ cussion on General Charles de Gaulle. Bräutigam, Oberländer, and Grote reflected in January 1942 that the Germans needed such a symbol of Russian leadership : a patriot, presumably more honour­ able and charismatic than Quisling, preferably a Soviet general recently captured by the Reich. The question of whether suitable and willing generals were to be found among the prisoners was promptly raised, and several men were identified as at least poten­ tially usable. While Wehrmacht Propaganda paid little attention to 1 Buchardt, pp. 222-3.

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this plan for political action, Bräutigam submitted a memorandum to his superiors, urging the creation of a Russian ‘ counter-government’ . One might consider [he wrote] creating a figure similar to that which the French found in General de Gaulle . . . not a politician or emigre general, but a man who himself comes from the ranks of the Soviet rulers. Most suitable would be a captive general of the Red Army. Since Germany was not planning to occupy the entire Soviet Union, Bräutigam continued, and would need some government for the unoccupied parts, it would be preferable to have it headed by a co-operative general rather than by a frustrated Stalin. For Rosen­ berg, however, the entire project was too unorthodox and radical; when pressed, he urged that the activities of collaborating generals be restricted to Betreuungsfragen — morale and welfare among their fellow-captives. The plan was apparently mentioned to Hitler, who, not unexpectedly, curtly vetoed it.1 Yet, bolstered by the efforts of the Propaganda Ministry and the military, the idea of creating a sham government lingered. In early March, Grote formally came out for a ‘ Russian de Gaulle’ (actually a curiously misleading designation). Stressing the potency of Russian patriotism, he reported to his superiors : According to specialists who know the mentality of the population (e.g. teachers, mayors, officers, and propagandists) and who have observed the impact of German propaganda on the enemy side during recent months, the effect of ‘ our ’ propaganda would be considerably increased if indigenous forces were employed. The utilization [Einschalten] of national formations, national movements, or even a sham government would provide the opportunity to have Russians appeal to Russians to fight against Stalin. Therewith would be eliminated the reproach that the Soviet Union is being conquered by fascist invaders for purposes of subjugation. . . .2 The exact course of subsequent events remains unclear, but similar proposals continued to circulate, even as high as the Fiihrer’s military adjutant. In April 1942 the Rosenberg Ministry learned that, according to ‘ circles close to the.Führer’, under certain circum­ stances one might raise ‘ even the question of opposition governments. The decision whether actual or sham [faktische oder fingierte] opposition governments would be involved, cannot as yet be made.’ 3 1 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung’, January 29, 1942* ; interviews G-5, G-11, G-25. 2 [Von Grote,] ‘Abschrift’, March 4, 1942, EAP 99/1269*, CRS. See also Schenkendorff’s report, p. 518 above. 3 Auswärtiges Amt, Ru V [Dr. Luckau], ‘ Sitzungsbericht aus dem RMfdbO., vom 14.4.42’, April 15, 1942*.

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Apparently it was Bräutigam who reported this changing mood and continued to press for it. Half a year later, when Wehrmacht Propaganda had already initiated its first ‘ Vlasov action’, he again recommended a bold move. The people in the East had recognized that ‘ for Germany the slogan of “ liberation from Bolshevism” is merely a pretext for the enslavement of the Slavic Ostvölker’ . Instead, the Russian people must be told something concrete about its future. . . . [He had previously] suggested as the best means the creation of a kind of counter-government against Stalin, consisting of a Red prisoner-of-war general, or, if one wished to avoid the term ‘ government’, merely a defector general, say, after the model of de Gaulle, who would become the crystallization point for all Red Army men dissatisfied with Stalin.1 'Phis was the most widely publicized exposition of the project to date. Meanwhile the Russian refugees entered the debate. Most of the monarchist old emigres from Russia were unacceptable to the Germans and to the bulk of the population in the occupied U .S.S.R . Although they participated to some extent in political and propa­ ganda work and in the formation of army units on the German side, their actual influence on the creation of a Russian political centre was virtually nil. Berlin was intent on preventing the emergence of any political parties in the East, even of a Nazi typ e; according to the official creed, the Untermenschen were unworthy, and unable to fathom the essence, of National Socialism.2 None the less a few abortive efforts were made — largely with the encouragement of the Propaganda Ministry — to establish Russian, Georgian, and Armenian Nazi parties. However interesting, the attempts were significant for German policy only as indices of a widespread chaos which per­ mitted such ephemeral and heterogeneous movements to rise and fall. Their impact on the political warfare controversy was negligible.1 Only one emigre group participated actively in the fight until in 1944 it, too, became non grata to the Germans :4 the Russian 1 Bräutigam, ‘ Aufzeichnung", October 25, 1942, Document 294-PS, TMWC, xxv, 332, 337. 2 Writings on National Socialism were not to be reproduced or translated in the Soviet languages, as ‘ by content [they] are intended for the German people and could be misunderstood by the [Soviet] peoples \ (RMfdbO., Richtlinien für die Pressezensur in den besetzten Ostgebieten [Berlin, ist ed., January 1943], sec. 23.) 3 These efforts included, among new Soviet defectors, the organization at the Hammelburg prisoner-of-war camp in 1941, led by a Russian lawyer, Mal'tsev ; the endeavours of Bronislav Kaminskii, who became the head of a collaborator brigade and an 4autonomous' area ; and the 4League for the Struggle against Bolshevism' led by Mikhail Oktan, a Soviet journalist who became a Nazi-type demagogue operating in the Orel area.

4 In addition, a politically amorphous though distinctly tsarist group of Russian £migr£s in Yugoslavia was authorized to form a Schutzkorps, employed primarily G.R.R.— 2 M

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Solidarists (N TS), accepted by Leibbrandt as the sole Great Russian organization with which he was willing to work because of its ‘ dynamism’ and its ideological proximity to fascism. The N T S successfully exploited the opportunity to promote its own ends by placing members of its organization in strategic positions (in the Reich as well as in the occupied areas) and seeking a monopoly of effective leadership among the emigres. Indeed, considering the small number of members, the influence of the Solidarists was disproportionate. One of the top propagandists at the Wehrmacht Propaganda compound at Viktoriastrasse, Alexander Kazantsev, was a leading N T S man. Kaminskii’s Russian Nazi ‘ party’ was guided by N T S officials. The Ostministerium’s training camp for ‘ converted’ prisoners at Wustrau was in effect a fief of the N T S, where its ideas were propagated under the noses of German mediocrities. In at least two-score towns and cities in the occupied areas there were Solidarist mayors, chiefs of police, or newspaper editors recruited by the proselytizers of the N T S ; finally, several of the top men within the Vlasov movement were likewise N T S members, though Vlasov himself refused to endorse their group. The importance of the N T S in the context of German Ostpolitik lies in the object lesson it provides that even extreme ‘ pro-separatists’ like Leibbrandt were willing to work with a strongly Great Russian group, provided it was ‘ effective’ and ideologically palatable; and that a determined and well-organized group could succeed in infiltrating and exerting pressure on virtually all German agencies concerned with Russian affairs. In the end, the Russian ‘ national interests’, as the N T S saw them, overruled its opportunistic adjust­ ment to the Germans and led it into conflict with the Gestapo, resulting in the arrest of its leadership during the summer of 1944.1 Other emigre efforts originated in Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, and Warsaw. While there were always some German officials who listened sympathetically and tried to help, the official position remained the same. Indeed, Hitler’s was in some respects the most consistent approach : against the partisans there. See the one-sided but useful series of articles by Colonel Rogozhin, ‘ Doklad . . . Deiatel’nost* Russkogo Korpusa v Serbii v 1 9 4 1 1945 gg.’ , Znamia Rossii (New York), nos. 7-9 (December 4, 1949-January 7,

1950).

1 See U .S . Department of State, External Research Paper (series 3, no. 76), N T S — The Russian Solidarist Movement (Washington, 1 9 5 1 ) ; the series of articles by Solomon M . Schwarz in Sotsialisticheskii Vestnik (New York), 1951 , nos. 8 -10 ; the memoir of a former N T S leader, Alexander Kazantsev, TreVia sila (Limburg : Posev, 1952) ; George Fischer, Soviet Opposition to Stalin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 107-8, 2 1 4 - 1 5 ; Buchardt, pp. 20 8-12 ; and interviews G -3, G -5, G -6, G- 1 2 .

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We must be clear [he declared] on this point: what is floating around in Europe in the way of emigres has no primary intention of raising Germany to hegemony in [Russia]; on the contrary, they have only the intention of doing away with Bolshevism in order then to take its place themselves. In reality they wouldn’t think of accepting German regions or even German sovereign rights [in Russia] nor of recognizing our right to territory there.1 Soviet Collaborators An unexpected source of pressure for political warfare developed from among the very target group of German propaganda. Sug­ gestions for revamping the German approach to the East came frequently and often spontaneously from captured Soviet officers and men. Such recommendations began early in the war, often in interrogations; at times, with the connivance of interrogating officers, they took the form of memoranda addressed to various German agencies. As early as September 1941 Goebbels was informed that a captured Russian colonel said recently that large numbers of Red Army men would desert if the Germans would promise a free Russian state in place of the Bolshevik system. But nothing at all happens. . . .2 A German expert at the Eastern front reported what a captured Soviet officer had told him : A Russian counter-government formed from among the [old] Russian emigration would be alien to our people. And if you want to win men from our [Soviet military] circles for it — not opportunistic but honest people — you must first prove to our satisfaction that Germany brings us something better and more perfect than the Soviets.3 The following year Bräutigam likewise cited the captives’ stand in support of his demand for a Russian liberation committee : Innumerable prisoners of war, in independent statements, insist that Germany’s utter silence about Russia’s future makes them fear the worst. Many would like to defect and don’t know to whom they would be going over. They would gladly and courageously fight against the Bolshevik regime, but under the banner of a recognized counter-revolutionary leader.4 1 [Hitler,] ‘ Auszug aus der Ansprache des Führers an die Heeresgruppen­ führer pp. am 1.7.43 abends’, Document 739 -P S, Vierteljahrshefte fü r Z eit­ geschichte (Munich), ii (1954), 3 * ° . 2 Rudolf Semmler, Goebbels (London : Westhouse, 1947), p. 52 (entry for September 24, 1941). 3 Gottlieb Leibbrandt, Bolschewismus und A bendland (Berlin, 1943, 2nd ed.), p. 15. The introduction was dated December 1941. 4 Document 294-PS, T M W C , xxv, 337.

528

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.

iv

Here was the old question: ‘ What are we to fight for ? ’ 1 ’he negativism of German military propaganda, inadequate in time of flush and victory, was woefully repulsive in time of need. It is hardly surprising that the prisoners’ statements effected no change in German policy. However, the prisoners were, as it turned out, to perform another service for the ‘ politicals ’ : to provide the cadres of a new Russian leadership. Among them the most ardent German initiators of a new course sought for a ‘ Russian de Gaulle’ . For an instant, they weighed making Iakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s captured son, the quisling leader of a counter-movement. However, Iakov, though apparently no admirer of his father, would not lend himself to such efforts.1 By the end of 1941 the Germans held scores of captured Soviet generals, and some of the German interrogators were probing their willingness to collaborate politically. Typical of the few ‘ potentials’ was Mikhail Lukin, commanding general of the Nineteenth Army. Though strongly anti-Soviet and something of a ‘ populist’, Lukin considered German propaganda hypocritical and demanded prompt freedom to dissolve collective farms and establish a Russian counter­ government which would fight only the Bolshevik leadership. Despite repeated pressure by the Germans, Lukin and most of his fellow-generals backed out and, with a few exceptions, did not join the Vlasov movement: their disappointment with the Germans and their expectations of Nazi defeat were so strong that not even antiSoviet sentiments could induce them to collaborate. In mid-1942, however, the fact of their existence helped establish in the minds of the German politicals the type of Soviet general who might serve as the new Russian leader on the German side.2 Another group of politically oriented collaborators was found in the occupied areas. While the majority of German-appointed mayors or district chiefs had few political ambitions of wider scope, here and there members of a city administration had some articulate notions and hopes. The memorandum from Smolensk has been 1 Iakov Dzhugashvili was captured on Ju ly 16, 19 4 1, near Vitebsk. German front-line propaganda made considerable use of his surrender and of a letter he addressed to his father through the Germans. In spite of the continuing dispute over his fate, it appears certain that he died in a German prisoner-of-war camp. See V B -M , July 24, 25, 29, 1941 ; Newbold Noyes, Jr., ‘ Interview with Stalin’s S o n ’ , Washington Star (Washington, D.C.), February 1 1, 1951 ; Vladimir Kerzhak, ‘ Iakov Dzhugashvili', Novoe Russkoe Slovo (New York), April 24, 1949, and ibid. December 26, 19 51 ; Bertram D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution (New York : Dial Press, 1948), pp. 450-2. 2 General Lukin returned to the Soviet Union in 1945, but was not restored to active service. He is reported to have died in Smolensk in 1947. (Interviews G -i 1, H -39 1, H -4 33, H -802 ; Arm y Group Centre, interrogation of General Lukin, December 12, 19 4 1, E A P 99/163*, C R S.)

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alluded to earlier.1 By September 1941 the Deputy Mayor of the city, Professor Boris Bazilevskii, was urging the Germans to make a special effort to win the peasantry and to make concrete political promises. Surprisingly, his recommendations were forwarded to Hitler, who apparently made some vague statement about the ‘ gradual’ exploitation of the reservoir of popular anti-Soviet feelings but failed to do anything.2 Other appeals followed, and some higher German echelons even warned their subordinates not to make any promises to self-appointed indigenous ‘ governors’ and ‘ leaders’ in the occupied areas. Yet the flood would not abate : to many of the Russian collaborators it seemed inconceivable that the Germans could not eventually be moved to change their political policy. Berlin remained the centre of the ‘ politicals’. By the spring of 1942 new faces had appeared at Viktoriastrasse and at other centres where the Germans sought to screen and train collaborators. There were at least three distinct elements among the Soviet citizens who identified themselves with these efforts : those who sincerely pleaded for a ‘ Russian Nazi’ movement — a trifling minority; those who were primarily opportunists — a far larger mass ; and finally those who were willing to collaborate and make the most of the situation — though not unconditionally — apparently animated by a variety of emotions, including strong patriotism and opposition to the elements of duress in the Soviet system but not necessarily by wholesale condemnation of the society in which they had grown up. This latter group, socially and politically heterogeneous, was perhaps the most interesting; it constituted potentially the most valuable cadres for a non-Soviet regime but also the most independent elements among the collaborators. The number of prisoners who expressed any articulate non-Bol­ shevik political ideas was sm all: many were intellectually or emotion­ ally unable to do s o ; others were unwilling or afraid; still others were too exhausted physically to care. Of the articulate minority, many of the best elements appeared early — but, interestingly 1 This was the occasion of the first Strikfeldt-Tresckow endeavour, p. 516 above. 2 [O KW /Ausl.Abw.,] ‘ Vortragsnotiz’ , September 25, 19 4 1, O K W /6 34*, C R S ; O K W /W F S t/L /IV Qu., ‘ Aktennotiz’ , October 6, 1 9 4 1 * ; Strikfeldt, letter to author, December 19, 1953. Bazilevskii remains a mysterious personality. One of his former students describes him as non-Communist even before the war, and his memoranda to the Germans would tend to support this view ; however, his subsequent return to the Soviet side as well as his testimony for the Soviet prosecu­ tion at Nuremberg, presumably with impunity for his war-time collaboration, suggest that he could have been a Soviet agent even while working with the G er­ mans. A t present there is not sufficient evidence to prove or disprove this hypo­ thesis. (See T M W C , xvii, 3 2 1 - 2 ; P.I., ‘ Zakon N ’iutona i N K V D ’ , Koloko [Hamburg], no. 4 [October 1952], pp. 15 -18 .)

53°

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enough, also backed out of collaboration before long. G. A. Polianskii, a talented and explicitly anti-Soviet chemist, addressed a message to the German authorities from the Viktoriastrasse ‘ labora­ tory’, in which, it appears, he was the first to revive Schiller’s phrase that ‘ Russia can be beaten only by Russians’ .1 This epigram over his report soon became the slogan of the political warfare movement. Polianskii himself, however, was promptly disillusioned and em­ bittered by his contacts with the Germans and withdrew from all political activity.12 In the first months of 1942 others like him advocated a ‘ Russian Committee to Carry Out the 1936 Constitution’ or variants of a ‘ Western-oriented, progressive’ movement.3 In substance, they were all representatives of a non-Communist left. Its most promi­ nent spokesman was an intriguing figure who went under the name of Miletii Alexandrovich Zykov, the subject of many disputes in recent years. The most credible version makes him out to have been a newspaperman, once closely associated with Bukharin and the son of a Menshevik trade-union officer. Upon his capture he addressed a letter to Goebbels and, presumably because of the striking im­ pression it produced, was flown to Berlin. For the following two years, concealing his true name and Jewish origin, he in effect master-minded the early phases of what became the Vlasov move­ ment, until his ‘ leftism’ and rumours of his genealogy in the summer of 1944 led to his sudden disappearance. Apparently he was liquidated by low-level SS officers at the instigation of Russian reactionary emigres.4 On May 5, 1942, Zykov started a new chain reaction by sub­ mitting what he called a ‘ plan for the practical mobilization of the Russian people against the Stalin system’ . Zykov plainly asked for a Russian government headed by a captive Soviet general, with its own army and air force, and the conclusion of a defensive alliance with Germany. The only alternative he could see to an ‘ intelligent’ German policy was to drive the people into the arms of Stalin.5 1 ‘ Russland wird nur durch Russland überwunden/ (Sigismund III, in Friedrich Schiller, Demetrius, Act I.) 2 Interview H -382. 3 Interviews G -23, G -3 1 . 4 On Zykov, see Fischer, op. cit. pp. 39 -41 ; Mikhail Kitaev, ‘ Communist Party Officials’ (New York : Research Program on the U .S .S .R ., 1954), pp. 152-8 ; Kazantsev, ‘ Taina maiora Zykova’ , Posev (Limburg), 19 5 1, no. 31(270), pp. 1 1 - 1 2 ; Volzhanin [pseud.], ‘ Kto Z y k o v ? ’ Bor'ba (Munich), 1950, no. 1 1 - 1 2 , pp. 17-20 ; interviews G -6 7, H -382, H -483. See also below, p. 605. Zykov told his German captors that he had been a deputy editor of Izvestiia from 19 31 to 1935, when he was jailed as a Communist ‘ deviationist*. He was released in 1939 and worked as a shop manager in Moscow until he was drafted in March 1942. 5 See Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 97-10 5.

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531

The political warfare movement seemed to be gaining momentum. Now a different type of collaborator emerged. Georgii Niko­ laevich Zhilenkov, one of the leading ‘ opportunists’ among them, had been first secretary of the Communist Party in one of the most important districts of Moscow City, a Party bureaucrat who had enjoyed his prerogatives. With the outbreak of war, he became political commissar of an army, a fact he managed to conceal for eight months after his capture. For a brief time in the fall of 1942 after his identification by the Germans, he was made head of one of the experimental units established in the area of Army Group Centre by Tresckow and his intelligence officer, Colonel Gersdorff. Initially camouflaged as an intelligence undertaking, the ‘ Experi­ mental Unit Centre’, or ‘ Osintorf Brigade’ , was unique in that its command was in Russian hands. It was liquidated before the end of the year when higher-ups like Kluge took fright of such forbidden games.1 Before its failure, however, Zhilenkov and his chief of staff at Osintorf, Colonel Vladimir Boiarskii, formerly a divisional com­ mander in the Red Army, sought to convince the Germans to change their approach. Full of anti-Semitic references, their first memo­ randum marks the authors as obviously trying to ride the German wind. And yet Zhilenkov bluntly insisted that ‘ the first question is always : What are you fighting for ? For the enslavement of Russia by the Germans ? ’ What he urged was a decidedly Germanophile programme, which would none the less be acceptable to ‘ patriotic ’ Russians. Another anonymous letter from a ‘ high-ranking Soviet officer’ — apparently Zhilenkov — presented a similar line of argument, which concluded: ‘ Resistance in the East is the answer to the attempt to reduce it [the Soviet people] to the status of Untermenschen ’ . That such memoranda were not entirely without impact may be deduced from the fact that they were discussed by Hitler’s own adjutants. In November 1942 Zhilenkov and Boiarskii visited various agencies in Berlin. In spite of the fact that they firmly opposed the Rosenberg ‘ nationality line’ , it was characteristic of the curiosity and search for new tactics prevalent in late 1942 that their visit attracted interest at the Ostministerium. After their trip they submitted a memorandum which argued : (1) In its struggle in the East, Germany relies exclusively on armed force. Apparently it is believed in Germany that the problems of the East can be solved by arms alone. 1 See also below, p. 537 n. 2 ; and P. Kashtanov [pseud.], ‘ Ot R N N A k R O A ’, M S * , C U . Zhilenkov was, somewhat artificially, given an assimilated rank of lieutenant-general in the RO A.

532

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(2) . . . By means of slogans like ‘ struggle for the Russian soil and for the Russian fatherland’, [Stalin] succeeds in rousing his people to utmost resistance. . . . (3) The experiences in the prisoner-of-war camps and in the occupied areas have reinforced the impression among the Russian people that they have exchanged a Russian policeman for a German policeman, who has the handi­ cap of being a foreigner and of not knowing the language of the people. . . . Their recommendations were equally blunt. As paraphrased by the reporting German officer, they amounted to (1) A solemn proclamation to the peoples of the Soviet Union. It would express Germany’s war aim in the East as liberation of the peoples from the Stalin system, their integration into the New Order of Europe, with assurances of their independent development. . . . (2) The creation of a Russian National Committee, which would play the part of something like a counter-government. . . . (3) For the subsequent support of its slogans, the organization by the Committee of a Russian People’s Army of 50,000 to 80,000 men, recruited originally from among prisoners and subsequently to be enlarged by recruitment among the country’s population.1 The arguments and programmes of the politicals were becoming monotonously repetitious. Civilians and m ilitary; Germans, their allies, their victim s; staff personnel and field officers; Nazis and non-Nazis; sincere and cynical — in each of these groups were advocates of ambitious efforts aimed at winning the support of the Soviet population, projects which despite all their variety seemed to culminate in the demand for a Russian sham government, if only for purposes of propaganda. The proposals poured in unsolicited and almost invariably remained without action. In the end, with sanction and probably encouragement from higher quarters, Colonel Hans Martin, nominal head of the Wehrmacht Propaganda section for Russia, firmly rebuffed all such plans. A government-in-exile, he maintained, would either co-operate servilely, in which case it could have no prestige, or else it would be effective and authoritative — and then it was bound to make new demands which the Reich must turn down in order not to compromise its authority and goals. The result in either case was bound to be trouble and tension.2 Such an outlook was fully consonant with Hitler’s personal approach and peculiar logic. Officially, political warfare was still banned. 1 Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 6 1-2 , 163-70; letter, n.d., forwarded by RM fdbO. to O K W and R M fV u P ., Document E ( R A ) -i* , Y IV O ; RM fdbO. [Krauskopf] to Major Engel, December 8, 1942*, and enclosure, ‘ Denkschrift des sowjetischen Generalleutnants Schilenkoff und Oberst Bojarsky’ , November 14, 1942*, H L . See also Fischer, op. cit. pp. 40 -1, 138-9. 2 O K W /W P r IV [Oberst Martin], ‘ Die Scheinregierung’ , August 1942, 7 5 13 1/ 10 4 * , C R S .

C H A P T E R XXV

T H E S WOR D A N D T H E P E N A Russian shall never bear arms.— H it l e r , 1941 He who risks his life on our side is our ally.— F ield - M arshal K l e is t , 1943

von

Subhumans Under Arms I n addition to Army officers who, because of their special experience in propaganda, intelligence, or military government, came to advo­ cate broad policy changes, another sizeable grouping in the armed forces supported the agitation in favour of launching political war­ fare, but without having an intrinsic interest in the political aspects of the Eastern campaign. The primary reason for their concern was the shortage of German manpower, which convinced them of the need to use indigenous personnel for para-military services. Once such units of military collaborators were established, it was essential to keep their morale and loyalty high. A policy designed to satisfy the population in the occupied regions not only could improve civilian good will, but could also increase the size and strengthen the allegiance of the army and police formations made up of former Soviet citizens. Paradoxically, the creation of army units was perhaps the most compelling device on the road to political warfare. Indeed, the extent to which Berlin authorized the formation of Eastern troops — Osttruppen, as they were collectively referred to — was a moderately accurate index of German confidence in the indigenous population, of German desperation, and of German willingness to abandon, at least tactically, the Untermensch approach. Finally, the Osttruppen also served as a lever for political action which the elements seeking a more radical reorientation of German policy could wield. The story of the Osttruppen — their origin, composition, moti­ vation, effectiveness, and fate — remains to be studied in detail, but it has an important place in the history of German policy towards the East.’ Here was another source of conflict between the Party 1 Some pertinent summaries and interpretations, though none definitive, will be found in George Fischer, Soviet Opposition to Stalin (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1952) ; Jürgen Thorwald, Wen sie verderben wollen (Stuttgart : Steingrüben-Verlag, 1 9 5 2 ) ; L£on Agourtine, ‘ Formation des unites de PEst (Osttruppen) par le haut-commandement allemand en 1942-19 43*, M S * , 1951 ; Paul W . Blackstock, 'German Covert Political Warfare Against the U .S.S.R .*, M S * (Washington, 1954). 533

534

Political W arfare

pt

.

iv

fanatics and the Army tacticians, between Hitler and the General Staff. As the war continued, the German need for manpower became more and more critical until it constituted a decisive pressure for desperate last-minute changes in policy. For Hitler, it was unthinkable that Russians should bear arms in the German cause. In 1941 he could see no reason for arming them ; later, he deemed their recruitment dangerous; at all times it was contrary to the premises on which the campaign was based. Nor was this policy restricted to Russia : *If we ever give any one of the conquered provinces the right to build up its own army or air force,’ he once remarked, ‘ our rule is over’. ‘ The greatest nonsense that could be committed in the occupied Eastern territories is to give the subject peoples arms. History teaches that all Herrenvölker have gone under after they allowed the subject peoples to bear arms.’ 1 At the policy-making conference on July 16, 1941, he proclaimed: Even if it seems easier at first to enlist subject peoples to carry arms, it is wrong to do so. Some day they are bound to turn against us. Only the German people shall bear arms, not the Slavs, not the Czechs, not the Cossacks, and not the Ukrainians.2 In mid-1943, in spite of all setbacks, he was still uncompromising : ‘ We shall never build up a Russian arm y: this is a phantom of the first order’. I f not more perceptive than his generals, Hitler was politically more consistent in maintaining that the creation of such a force would mean ‘ forfeiting our war aim in advance’ : some of the Russian and German ‘ politicals’ were bound to use the establish­ ment of armed units as a wedge for further demands.-1 Whether or not such troops might help stave off defeat and what their propaganda effect might be, he did not consider. Few orders of Hitler were defied so promptly as this one. He himself was constrained to sanction some of its violations. A few exceptions were made even prior to the invasion. Under the auspices of the Abwehr, small Belorussian, Russian, and Caucasian teams and larger Ukrainian units were established, ostensibly for intelligence purposes.4 Even Rosenberg acknowledged, however, that these were special cases and that in general ‘ the establishment of a 1 Harry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1951), PP- 49, 7 3 , 302 ; and H T T , pp. 354, 425. 2 [Bormann,] ‘ Aktenvermerk*, July 16, 1941, Document 2 2 1-L , T M W C , xxxviii, 88. 3 ‘ Besprechung des Führers*, June 6, 1943, Journal of Modern History, (Chicago), xxiii, no. 1 (March 1951), 64-5. 4 See also above, pp. 114 , 4 16 ; Fritz Arlt, ‘ Die Entwicklung der politischen

Vertretung der Völker des Ostens*, MS#, pp, 8-11, 15,

cm

.

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Ukrainian army is, at least for the time being, out of the question’.1 A fortiori, the same was true of a Russian army. Moreover, the high command had given no advance thought to ‘ Eastern’ units. The whole concept of Osttruppen was alien to the Prussian (though not entirely to the ex-Habsburg) military. These troops emerged largely as ad hoc improvisations, unplanned at the highest echelons. The earliest form of Eastern military help to the Wehrmacht stemmed from a makeshift decision on the part of German divisional and lower-level commanders. As they advanced, the Germans encountered many thousands of Russians, civilians, and soldiers, who had abandoned their homes or units, or had been captured by the Germans. At times hard-pressed, in a foreign environment, encouraged to seize whatever it needed, the German Army simply accepted the services of such men, who for the most part appeared glad to have found in this fashion a source of food and to have escaped the hardships of prison life. Neither for their German superiors nor for these auxiliaries was there usually any political significance to their actions. Before long, most German units in the East had their indigenous helpers — known in German as Hilfswillige, abbreviated Hiwis — working as ammunition carriers, bootblacks, cooks, truck drivers, medics, translators, or horse grooms. Unwittingly, these men helped enure the German soldier to the presence of Untermenschen in the role of desirable helpers. The Hiwis did indeed prove useful to the German A rm y; though here and there some deserted and some were (perhaps understandably) not distinguished by devotion or industry, the bulk were loyal and co-operative.12 In time the scope of their tasks was expanded. When the pace of German replacements to the Army slackened, the Hiwis were increasingly given military tasks. In addition, the growth of the partisan movement provided a potent stimulus for German rear echelon commanders to utilize indigenous personnel in combating the ‘ Reds’. The Army acquired the Hiwis, as it were, on the black market. 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar in der Ukraine*, M ay 7, 19 4 1, Document 1028-P S, T M W C , xxvi, 570 n. 2 One observer writes : M any N C O ’s and lieutenants had ‘ their own Ivans*. The general impression of the front-line officers was that whenever you gave the Hiwis equal status in treatment, food, etc., they were ready to do anything to help you. This con­ clusion later facilitated the organization of Eastern units because the [German] troops had been won over to their employment. (Interview H -10.) See also [Herwarth,] ‘ Germany and the Occupation of Russia*, M S #, pp. 13 -16 ; Buchardt, pp. 87-90 ; Thorwald, op. cit. p. 67.

536

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Not listed in German army reports and statistics, they were hangerson without formal rights or duties. Their number was in constant flu x; in the spring of 1942, various sources assert, there were some 200,000. Thereafter, their total increased rapidly, and it is probably safe to say that by the spring of 1943 they numbered half a million or more.1 The pragmatic case for their utilization was effectively presented in the spring of 1943 by General Heinz Hellmich, who was in charge of Osttruppen affairs at the High Command. His argu­ ment, unacceptable to the Führer, was welcomed by the ‘ Free Russia’ proponents as at least a stop-gap position. In a situation in which small forces were to conquer large areas, the troops were bound to resort to ‘ self-help ’ : Thus were created the Hiwis and later the Osttruppen. This im­ provisation, undesirable in itself but brought about by lack of manpower, eventually led to a state of affairs which required some direction from above. To renounce the Hiwis or the creation of [Eastern] units would have been possible only if enough German forces had been available at the time. . . . [As this was not the case,] the population’s readiness to help had to be exploited as much as possible. . . . The creation of Osttruppen is a means to free German troops. How far removed Hellmich was from the ‘ politicals’ is well illustrated by his belief that the Eastern troops had but one thing to give — their lives — which the Wehrmacht ‘ must ruthlessly exploit to the last’ . He was not concerned about their political demands, which . . . are not determined by their accomplishments but above all by the proportion of their forces to ours. The stronger we are [and] the more the Eastern peoples are bled white, the smaller will be the practical effect of their demands. 1 These and the following figures include neither uniformed police nor the para-military formations later used in anti-partisan warfare. One estimate speaks of 500,000 in the summer of 1942 and 800,000 before the end of the year. Tw o other sources give one million for the winter of 19 4 2 -3 — a figure which can be considered as only the roughest of approximations. In March 1943 General Hellmich spoke of 310,000 Hiwis ; in July of that year, Koch and Lohse, seeking to prove that the Arm y had more men than it needed, gave the number as between 600,000 and 1,200,000, while Backe, stressing the food difficulties, estimated the number at 1 -4 million. It is likely that the latter figures were considerable exaggera­ tions and included categories of Osttruppen besides Hiwis. Probably the number of Hiwis declined somewhat from the spring of 1943 on, because of transfers, reorganizations, and desertions. (See Ernst Köstring, ‘ Freiwilligenverbände’ , M S * , p. 5 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 56, 245 ; Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin [Bonn : Athenäum-Verlag, 1950], p. 205 n. ; Wallace Carroll, ‘ It Takes a Russian to Beat a Russian’, Life [Chicago], December 19, 1949 ; Hellmich, ‘ Vortragsnotiz betr. Osttruppen’, March 22, 1943, Document N G -3 5 3 4 * ; Berger, ‘ Aktenvermerk’, Ju ly 14, 1943, Document N O -3370 *.)

fii. \xv

The Sword and the Pen

537

Joining the advocates of the double standard, Hellmich admitted that the Osttruppen must be given a political purpose but solely as a means to an end, [and it] must be offered only to the extent that it is necessary to produce readiness on their part to sacrifice their lives. . . . The volunteers must save German blood at the front, while those unable to fight must be made to join the ranks of labourers.1 Hellmich’s statement confirms that in the minds of their sponsors, the establishment of Osttruppen, though carried out against the express orders of the Führer, by no means foreshadowed a necessary development of political warfare. Gradually other Eastern units emerged : separate companies and battalions of former Red Army men under German command. Since, strictly speaking, their very existence was illegitimate, no standard rules existed for them — no table of organization, uniform, nomenclature, channels of command, or control by German person­ nel. At first their functions were generally limited to such tasks as guard duty at prisoner compounds and military installations. From about November 1941 on, a more regular type of Ost unit began to take shape. Soon six battalions were organized in the area of Army Group Centre. There, under the guidance of men like Colonel von Tresckow and under the sceptical eyes of Field-Marshal von Kluge, in 1942 experimental units were further expanded for combat, intelligence, and anti-partisan missions. Elsewhere the number of Osttruppen was also on the increase, but political reservations continued to limit their effectiveness. Indigenous personnel were restricted to the lowest ranks; units were kept small so as not to constitute any ‘ political menace ’ and were used generally as adjuncts of larger German formations ; Wehrmacht personnel, even of lower rank than the indigenous officers, formed the cadres [Rahmen­ personal] which guided and circumscribed each unit’s activities.12 1 Document NG-3534*. 2 The earliest battalions in Centre bore names like ‘ Dnieper’, ‘ Berezina’, and ‘ Pripet’ , in a German effort to avoid the use of the prohibited term ‘ Russia’ , just as the use of ‘ Ukrainian’ and especially ‘ Cossack’ at times amounted merely to a euphemistic blind for Russian troops. Ethnically mixed Ost units existed side by side with specifically Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, and other battalions, construction units, replacement pools, training battalions, service companies, infantry and pioneer detachments, security companies, and others. (See [OKH/ Gen.d.Osttr. ?] ‘ Verzeichnis von fremdvölkischen Verbänden in der deutschen Wehrmacht’ *, n.d.) The 134th German Infantry Division provides a curious, though exceptional, example of successful use of Russians in front-line combat. From July 19 4 1, in defiance of official policy, this unit offered all prisoners enlistment on an equal footing with German troops, and by the end of 1942 nearly half the division

538

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Most German field commanders tended to welcome the indi­ genous troops because they unexpectedly added to the strength of the depleted German forces and could be assigned unpleasant or hazardous missions. As early as December 1941 the Foreign Office found that according to reports of the VAAs attached to the various army head­ quarters, Russian prisoners of war belonging to many different nationalities have been used with the best of success as auxiliary forces and in some cases even served in combat units. . . .l By mid-1942, without being advertised openly, the existence of Russian Osttruppen was a well-known secret. Legends and Legions Two groups of military collaborators were formally sanctioned by Berlin as early as 1941 : Cossack troops and non-Slavic ‘ national legions’ . In a mixture of expediency with vague historical stereo­ types, pageantry, and a good record of anti-Bolshevism, permission was granted for the Cossacks to organize sotni [literally ‘ hundreds’, the traditional Cossack units] and cavalry squadrons.2 To Hitler, who had been in touch with Cossack emigre fascists since the mid­ twenties, and to other Nazi stalwarts, who had periodically received memoranda seeking to demonstrate that the Cossacks must have been the lost Eastern Goths, it was somehow less objectionable to authorize Cossack partners-in-arms than to tolerate other Slavs in uniform. strength reportedly consisted of former Soviet troops. (Blackstock, op. cit. ch. vi, P- 3 -) Early in the war, apparently with the support of both Abwehr and Army Group Centre, a unit of Russians was created under the code-name of Grankopf (i.e. ‘ Gray Head*, after its early commander, the son of the ‘ W hite’ general Sakharov). This organization, unique because it was Russian-commanded, became the so-called Osintorf Brigade, perhaps the largest Russian formation on the German side up to that time and both a political and military storm-centre. (See also above, p. 5 31.) (Interviews G -3 , G - 1 1 , G - 1 3 , G -14 , G -19 , H -10 5, H -14 7 ; Buchardt, pp. 148-53 ; Fischer, op. cit. p. 43 ; Kleist, op. cit. pp. 200-4 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 79-80, 86, 163-9 ; David Chavchavadze, ‘ The Vlassov Movement’ , M S # [Yale University, 1950], pp. 19-22 ; Mikhail Kitaev [pseud.], ‘ Russkoe osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie’ , M S * [Munich, 1949], pp. 17 -19 ; Documents N O 5446* and N G - 4 7 2 1 * ; Herre, ‘ Unternehmen Zeppelin’ , M S * , IfZ ; and Walther Hansen, ‘ Im Bereich des Kdr. Gen. der Sich.Tr. u. Bfh. im Heeresgebiet M itte’ , M S * , IfZ.) 1 Kramarz to Weizsäcker, December 17, 19 4 1, Document N G -4 3 0 1* . 2 Interviews G -8, H-500. The order originally authorized one sotnia for each German security division, to consist of released prisoners of war. It sanctioned the enrolment of Ukrainians and Belorussians as well as Cossacks. (O K H / GenStdH/Org.Abt. [II], circular, November 16, 1941, 7 5 1 3 1 /9 4 *, C R S .) See also above, p. 301.

CH. xxv

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Beyond the military uses to which the Cossacks could be put, some Germans seem to have seized this opportunity to promote an ‘ interim political solution’. In the face of official obstinacy towards larger Ost units and their political utilization, the Cossack cavalry became a means of consolidating Russians in distinct military units and of liberating thousands of prisoners by absorbing them into the new formations.1 While the motives of the sponsors of the Cossack formations were by no means identical with those of the ‘ Free Russia’ group, the latter none the less welcomed the endeavour as a step in the right direction. The ease with which the Cossack units were authorized by the High Command reflected the prevailing state of confusion about the arming of Eastern personnel: there was no rational ground, nor any powerful promoter, for such a significant exception to the rule. By contrast, the establishment of ‘ national legions’ for the nonSlavic nationalities of the U .S.S.R . amounted to a major victory for the Ostministerium. Rosenberg’s Ministry opposed the integration of non-Russians into the general collaborator formations but at the same time promoted the creation of separate military units for each nationality. In practice, the establishment of Ukrainian and Belo­ russian formations faced various obstacles. Many prisoners from these areas had been released in 1941. Koch and Lohse looked with distinct hostility on any project designed to arm their subjects. And the anti-Ukrainian policy adopted in the fall of 1941 precluded highlevel approval for such a move. What remained were the nonSlavs — the various nationals of the Caucasus, Central Asia, as well as Tatars and Kalmyks. When it came to non-Slavic prisoners, moreover, opposition from orthodox Nazis was weaker because German interest in their areas was less, because some readily believed the non-Slavs to be ‘ particularly anti-Bolshevik’, and because other fanatics concentrated their venom of racial hatred on the Slavs rather than on other ‘ Aryan’ and Moslem groups. Although Hitler had initially forbidden military service by any Eastern peoples regardless of nationality, two relatively insignificant events stimulated him, as early as the fall of 1941, to depart from this policy. One was the visit of Turkish General Erkilet, who inter­ vened with the Führer on behalf of the Turkic prisoners. The other was a letter addressed to Hitler by a major of the Soviet 1 T he distinct political intentions in this operation are attributed to FreytagLoringhoven, an intelligence officer at one time associated with von Tresckow and later a participant in the anti-Hitler plot. (See Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 1 1 5 - 1 8 ; Arlt, op. cit. p. 11 ; interview G -1 9 ; and below, p. 656.) Before the end of 1941, Cossack units were in action ; soon they played an important part in anti­ partisan operations.

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General Staff, an Azerbaijani, who, finding himself in German hands early in the war, promptly assured the Germans that he had always had pro-Nazi, anti-Bolshevik leanings and only sought an opportunity to fight for his homeland.1 If these two incidents sufficed to produce a change in Hitler’s attitude, one may assume that his views — though bombastically proclaimed — had not been so rigid as those he held on other pro­ blems. Given his general notion that ‘ the pure Moslems, that is, the real Turkic peoples’, were the only Soviet nationalities capable of providing loyal and reliable troops,12 it was perhaps not surprising that the first formal breach in the ban on Eastern troops should have been the recruitment of a Turkic legion, authorized by Hitler in midNovember 1 9 41.3 Before the end of the year the OKW, with the whole-hearted approval of the Ostministerium, ordered the creation of four separate legions for Turkestanis, Caucasian Moslems, Georgians, and Armenians.4 They were promptly established from recruits selected in prisoner-of-war compounds and then subjected to training, rehabilitation, and indoctrination along rigidly proGerman and separatist lines. In practice, Hitler’s limitation of the legions to the Turkics was of little consequence. By some ambiguity, Georgians and Armenians were classed with them from the start. The Army sur­ reptitiously fostered the development of other legions, with the active and at times impatient help of various agencies. Actually these ‘ legions’ — as well as subsequent ones — constituted individual companies and battalions united only in name, stationed in different areas or even countries, and subject to different German operational commands. Unlike their Russian counterparts, however, some of them were sent into action — in the Caucasus and later in the W est; others were gathered into larger contingents. They were a legiti­ mate, formal part of the German Armed Forces, occasionally 1 Interviews G - i , G -6, H -13 5 ; Rosenberg, Portrait, p. 305. On the Erkilet visit, see also above, p. 234. 2 Hitler, ‘ Lagebesprechung’, December 12, 1942*, UofP, pp. 3-5. 3 O K W /W F S t/L [Warlimont], ‘ Aufstellung einer türkischen Legion’ , Novem­ ber 17, 1941, M /L 474*, C R S . 4 Apparently Rosenberg convinced Hitler that the creation of separate national legions for each ethnic group would permit simultaneously the inculcation of antiRussian ideas and the neutralizing of ‘ the danger of a pan-Turanic movement’ . However, also in accordance with the Ostministerium view, the legions lumped together the various Central Asian nationalities and even bracketed the Moslems of the North Caucasus with the Azerbaijanis. (Rosenberg, ‘ Vermerk über Unterredung beim Führer am 1 4 .1 2 .1 9 4 1 ’, Document 15 17 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 272. See also Document 1520 -P S , T M W C , xxvii, 288 ; and Auswärtiges Amt [Kramarz], ‘ Aufstellung von Freiwilligenverbänden’ , December 30, 1941, Document N G -4 3 0 1* .)

CH. X X V

The Sword and the Pen

541

receiving mention in war communiques and public reports on the campaign.1 For some time, the legions remained a case apart. The exact sequence of events which led to the legalization of the other Osttruppen was and remains confused. On February 10, 1942, Hitler, informed of the growing number of indigenous battalions being activated in the East, suddenly prohibited the organization of more such formations. None the less they continued to expand in a peculiar twilight of illegality. In German uniforms yet discriminated against by the Germans, encouraged to collaborate yet hidden from the higher echelons, the indigenous troops, as one officer put it, had the prospect of becoming Untermenschen with Iron Crosses.2 Apparently in June 1942 Hitler’s attention was once more drawn to the ‘ menacing’ build up of Osttruppen, and he again expressly 1 The size of these units is difficult to determine. The most reliable estimates place the number of Turkic, Caucasian, and Cossack soldiers on the German side at 153,000 as of the spring of 1943, as compared with some 80,000 in Russian and ethnically mixed Ostbataillone. (Interview G -32 .) See also [OKH/Gen.d.Osttr. ?] ‘ Verzeichnis*, op. cit.y and a detailed semi-official summary by the Ostministerium, January 24, 1945, Document N O -5800*. The largest and perhaps best known formation was the i62d (Turkic) Infantry Division, consisting of Turkestani and Azerbaijani contingents. It was commanded first by von Niedermayer (see above, p. 10), and then by Colonel (later MajorGeneral) Ralph von Heygendorff, politically a nonentity. This division appears to have been a singular failure. A different type of unit was the 450th Infantry Regiment, commanded by an old China hand, Meyer-Mader, apparently skilled at handling Asians ; later on he (like von Pannwitz with his Cossack Corps) ‘ transferred allegiance* from the Arm y to the S S — not because of ideological proclivities but to obtain more and better arms. Other units consisted of Volga Tatars, Georgians, Armenians, and North Caucasians. In addition to the basic legions, there was also a Kalmyk Cavalry Corps formed after the German retreat early in 1943 ; a large labour construction unit known by the name of its com­ mander, Boiler ; and a variety of smaller national or ethnically mixed formations. See interviews G - i , G -6, G -8, G -10 , H -89, H -13 5 , H -18 2 , H -354, H -384, H -533 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 72, 116 -2 5 , 3 1 2 - 1 5 , 405 ; Kleist, op. cit. pp. 177, 205 ; Buchardt, pp. 116 ff. ; Arlt, op. cit. ; Meyer-Mader, Himmler, and Berger, exchange of letters, November 1943-January 1944, Document N O -220 0* ; [Ismail Akber], ‘ Azerbaidzhanskie legionery v bor’be za nezavisimost* *, M S * ; Garip Sultan, ‘ Gründung der Wolga-Tatarischen Legion*, M S * ; Gerhard von Mende, ‘ Erfahrungen mit Ostfreiwilligen in der deutschen Wehrmacht während des 2. Weltkrieges*, Vielvölkerheere und Koalitionskriege (Darmstadt : Leske, 1952), pp. 24-33 ; and Heinz Danko Heere, ‘ Gen. Ritter von Niedermayer’, M S * , IfZ. 2 Herwarth, op. cit. pp. 16 -17 ; Carroll, op. cit. p. 8 2 ; interview G -19 . Hitler’s order of February 10 is not available. The closest thing to it (probably a purposely more moderate interpretation by Stauffenberg’s office, which wanted to promote military collaboration) is the wire of the O K H Organization Section : ‘ The Führer has decided that the establishment of additional Ukrainian and Baltic combat formations — as units usable in the field — for security tasks or at the front is to be refrained from*. (O KH /GenStdH/Org. Abt. (II), ‘ Nr. 736/42 gKdosQ*, February 10, 1942, 7 5 13 1/9 4 * , C R S.)

G.R.R.— 2 N

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forbade the formation of new units, adding that the collaborators were to be employed only in the rear areas and not in combat. The Organization Section of the OKH, however, found two loopholes which considerably reduced the impact of the b an : the various armies in the field were tipped-ofF in advance of the distribution of Hitler’s order and thus could activate new units and increase the complements of collaborators before the deadline of August 1 ; moreover, the recruitment of Hiwis and other individual replacements for regular German units was not explicitly barred. As a matter of fact, the OKH was able to suggest to its field commanders that every division in the East could have ex-Soviet volunteers up to 10 or 15 per cent of its total strength.1 Having survived one more crisis, the German proponents of military collaboration were much relieved when Hitler’s personal position soon changed somewhat in their favour. The stimulus came from the need for a radical revamping of anti-partisan warfare. In his basic Directive No. 46 of August 18, 1942, Hitler acknowledged the existence and participation of indigenous formations and pro­ vided for their ‘ maintenance and expansion’ in so far as they were reliable and willing to serve. While their use in combat remained forbidden, Hitler authorized the OKH to issue what the proponents of Eastern troops had demanded for some time — regulations on uniforms, ranks, pay, decorations, and relations with German personnel.12 The appropriate directives followed with little delay. In August there appeared, over Haider’s signature, the basic pamphlet-order No. 8000 on ‘ Auxiliary Indigenous Forces in the East’, which stressed that the size of the Ostraum and the shortage of German forces made necessary the optimum use of indigenous civilians and prisoners of war.3 This series of directives did no more than regularize the existence 1 T he actual directive is not available. Whether the inclusion of indigenous auxiliaries was specifically authorized by Hitler remains uncertain ; at any rate, those who urged their increased employment insisted that ‘ according to the Führeris orders every division is to have about 3000 indigenous men as auxiliaries*. (Colonel Altenstadt, in Protocol, December 18, 1942.) In all likelihood, this reference to the Führeris mythical wishes was a device to forestall criticism. 2 Hitler, ‘ Weisung N r. 46 : Richtlinien für die verstärkte Bekämpfung des Bandenunwesens im Osten*, August 18, 1942, Document 4 7 7 -P S * ; interview G -19 . 3 O KH /GenStdH /O rg.Abt. (II), ‘ Nr. 8000/42’ , Landeseigene Hilfskräfte im Osten (Berlin, August 1942). It was supplemented by a separate order ‘ Nr. 9000/ 4 2 ’ on Turkic rear area units (September 4, 1942). Finally, on April 29, 1943, came a 35-page directive on the Hiwis, known as order ‘ Nr. 5000/43* (excerpt in Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 246-7), which included them among the full-fledged Eastern ‘ liberation* troops. Earlier, on Ju ly 14, 1942, a special set of decorations for valour and merit for Easterners had been authorized.

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of heretofore unacknowledged units. It did not establish a ‘ Russian Army of Liberation ’ nor constitute a direct concession to indigenous political demands or to German pressures for political warfare. It did grant the military collaborators a status formally almost equal to that of the German soldiers with whom they served. To Hitler and his devoted followers, this was but a small, tactical retreat from the Untermensch line. For the ardent politicals, it was a first step in the direction of better treatment and better relations, albeit woefully inadequate in terms of the ambitious changes they deemed essential. For the ‘ realist’, utilitarian officers, it was just about as much political wisdom as they were willing to inject into a military line of reasoning. Many of the officers had only a minimum of political interest and were well aware that they operated within the frame­ work of a tight dictatorship. Moreover (as one of them later re­ called), ‘ if politics is the art of the possible, we could not have realistically hoped for more than this [as political concessions to the Easterners]. The improvement in the troops’ status was not the political way to solve the ills of Ostpolitik, nor was it the frontal approach, but as we saw it, it was the only one that could work.’ 1 The ‘ realist’ elements in the Army were fortunate to have on their side, and in a crucial position, a man of the calibre and integrity of von Stauffenberg, whose Organization Section in the O KH juggled assignments for individual officers and activated units skil­ fully enough to put (in the views of its personnel) the best men in the crucial positions. Many of the assignments to the Caucasus in 1942 were successfully handled in this fashion; the elastic inter­ pretation given to some of Hitler’s directives on the Osttruppen was due to the same staff; and on December 15, 1942, Stauffenberg obtained the consent of his superiors to activate a new and separate agency for indigenous units. A special General der Osttruppen (later renamed General of Volunteer Formations) operated hence­ forth under the aegis of his office. Primarily an administrative move, the reorganization reinforced the ‘ legitimacy’ of the Easterners in the German armed forces.12 1 Interview G -19 . 2 O KH /GenStdH /O rg.Abt. (II), ‘ Nr. 114 0 0 /4 2’ , December 15, 1942, H 14/296*, C R S. Its first commanding general, Heinz Hellmich, proved to be ineffective and was restored to combat duty after a year. His place was then taken by General Köstring, who shared Schulenburg’s outlook but was less politically oriented, with von Herwarth as his perceptive adjutant, and Herre as his chief of staff. Stauffenberg and Herwarth had earlier succeeded in making Köstring ‘ Inspector of Turkic T ro op s’ during the withdrawal from the Caucasus. (Inter­ views G - i , G -19 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 126-9.) On Herwarth’s background and his political assessment of the war in the East, see Charles W . Thayer, Hands. Across the Caviar (Philadelphia : Lippincott, 1952), pp. 183-200,

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The pivot of these and other organizational changes which were decidedly beneficial to the promoters of a more ‘ realistic’ Ostpolitik was Stauffenberg. If he did not share so elaborate a political concept of the future Russia or possess the same experience as Schulenburg, Hilger, or Strikfeldt, his own views were no less clear-cut and were probably more lofty. The extensive controversy over his attitude towards Russia seems best resolved in the vignette given by Professor Wheeler -Bennett. Certain it is that he rejected absolutely every form of rule by force and all manifestations of totalitarianism. He dreamed, and had actually taken some steps towards the practical realization of his dream that the over­ throw of authoritarian tyranny in Germany should coincide with, or at least should closely precede, a similar liberation of thought and civil liberty in Russia.1 It was in this spirit that he paired his anti-Hitler activities with what little practical help he could give the budding, indigenous antiStalin movement in the East. Stauffenberg’s outlook remained exceptional, and a large part of the military continued to think (to use Hassell’s phrase) with their hands at their trouser-seams. It is none the less true that the stage was set for new and more intense efforts by the Army ‘ realists’ in Ostpolitik. Stalingrad catapulted many wavering elements to the side of the German opposition and provided it with additional objectlessons in support of an ambitious new departure in the East. Momentum of Protest From its slow beginnings in the first months of the campaign, the avalanche of criticism directed against official policy slowly gained in momentum as it rolled on unarrested, engulfing ever wider areas. By the fall of 1942 it was hardly an exaggeration to describe the upper echelons of military government as solidly aligned against the obviously detrimental techniques of colonialism and terror. This did not preclude such abuses on their part as occurred in anti­ partisan warfare and forcible evacuations. Yet, over the months the tenor of military government reports had changed in a significant 1 John W . Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis o f Power (New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1953), p. 601. See also above, pp. 239-40, and below, p. 588. The hypothesis of a pro-Soviet ‘ solution* ostensibly advocated by Stauffenberg appears to have been initiated by Gisevius, who was personally at odds with him (Hans B. Gisevius, To the B itter E n d [Boston : Houghton, Mifflin, 1947]). Even less reliable is Karl Michel's Ost und West (Zürich : Thomas, 1947), which considerably exaggerates his role. See also Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit (Munich : Hermann Rinn, i953)> PP- 3 3 2“3 i and Hans Rothfeis, The German Opposition to Hitler (Chicago : Regnery, 1948).

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way. Typical of the new attitude was a report from the commander of the Army-held Eastern Ukraine: reacting against Koch’s out­ rageous confiscations, carried out ostensibly to feed the troops, he protested that ‘ all commandeering [Eingriffe] of the population’s food supply must be limited to a minimum, and the inner readiness of the civilian population to collaborate with us must be recognized as a decisive factor’ . Rejecting Koch’s contrived dilemma that either Germans or Ukrainians must starve, the general exclaimed : ‘ We need not only the land but also [the support of] the people’ . There was an inevitable community of interests, he concluded, be­ tween conquerors and conquered, and the Army resented the ‘ errors ’ of the civilian administration which contributed to disrupting it.1 A far greater impact was produced by a basic 17-page paper from the pen of General Gehlen, the head of Fremde Heere Ost, who usually kept out of public sight. Like Schenkendorff eight months earlier, Gehlen placed his critique and recommendations into the non-political, military framework of partisan warfare and the employ­ ment of indigenous auxiliaries. Stressing Soviet accomplishments in tying down and harassing German forces behind the front lines, the memorandum pointed to the enlistment of the indigenous population as the only practicable counter-measure: the pre­ requisite for its success was a favourable disposition of the people towards the Germans. Not without astuteness, the document listed ‘ justice, organizational ability, understanding, welfare’ as elements for which the Russian strove but which neither Soviet nor German authorities satisfied. The basis of the entire [Nazi] maxim of administration in the East was the premise: ‘ The Russian is objectively inferior; hence he is . . . to be kept alive only to perform labour and on the lowest level of intelli­ gence’. This concept, debatable in itself, becomes unquestionably an error of the most grievous kind when it can be recognized by the mass of the Russian population in all [German] measures. . . . The answer to the growth of the partisan movement, Gehlen con­ tinued, was a radical reversal of German tactics including a program­ matic proclamation by the German leadership with assurances that Russia would be given self-government and not a colonial status. It was naive, he added, to hope to eradicate Russian nationalism by keeping silent about it. An effective supporting measure of such a declaration [the document continued] can be the fictitious formation of a national Russian sham 1 Bfh. Heeresgebiet ‘ A ’ [von Roques] to O KH /Gen.Q u., September 14, 1942, 7 5 I 5^)/1 # » C R S .

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government, which would operate as a ‘ National Committee for the Liberation of the Homeland ’ solely on paper and through patriotic pronouncements on both sides of the front. Personalities with impressive names, amply willing and ready, are to be found among the captive generals. . . . [But they] do not want to appear as mercenaries who betray their country ‘ for a piece of bread ’. . . . The better-type Russian has more self-respect than he is given credit for. Such a volte-face, finally, would also have to include the ‘ ruthless abolition of all discrimination against “ voluntary” Russian workers in the Reich’, the grant of greater self-government in the occupied areas, wider cultural freedom there, and more extensive use of indigenous troops as genuine allies of the Reich.1 The Gehlen report received wide attention. Here, at the height of the military crisis at Stalingrad, was a detailed restatement of virtually all the arguments of expediency which a realistic, ‘ patriotic ’ officer could marshal in favour of a basic reversal of Ostpolitik? It was symptomatic of the increasing political-mindedness among the German military. Exceptionally outspoken (particularly in its advocacy of a government-in-exile), it reflected the convergence, at the end of 1942, of three fairly distinct strains: criticism of Ost­ politik as such; the anti-Hitler groundswell in the officers’ corps; and the military defeats which reached their climax at Stalingrad. In the last analysis, it was the increasing likelihood of defeat that spurred more and more men in the Army to embrace politics as the nostrum that might salvage what could not be won by arms : political warfare rose on the bitter yeast of defeat. The outward climax of the Army’s protest was the pre-Christmas12 1 Fremde Heere Ost [Gehlen], ‘ Dringende Fragen des Bandenkrieges und der “ Hilfswilligen "-Erfassung*, November 25, 1942, H 3 / 19 1 * , C R S . 2 In a memorandum submitted at the same time, Italian Field-Marshal Messe on his part minced no words. Germany [he concluded] strives not for the substitution of another govern­ ment for the Bolshevik regime but for the direct control of all of Eastern Europe as an economic zone of influence. The treatment of the population and the prisoners, as well as the exploitation of natural resources, betray lack of fore­ sight, contradictions of directives, lack of cohesion and instability among the higher military, political, and economic organs whose task is the administration of the occupied territories. . . . Germany has not understood how to evoke sympathy and willingness to collaborate among the population. . . . (Giovanni Messe, Der Krieg im Osten [Zürich : Thomas, 1948], p. 81. For another Italian analysis, see Aldo Valori, L a campagna di Russia C S I R - A R M I R , 1 9 4 1 -/ 9 4 3 (Rome : Grafica nazionale editrice, 1951), i, 229-48. See also Frauenfeld*s interesting report, ‘ Denkschrift über die Probleme der Verwaltung*, [December 1942,] Document 1 3 8 1 -P S * . Though exhibiting the standard antiSlavic approach, the author insisted that ‘ one can never expect the necessary co­ operation with the armed forces from a population who does not know whether it will still be alive tomorrow*.

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conference of 1942 between it and the Rosenberg Ministry. The protocol, cited earlier,1 amounted to a forceful summary of the views of those who later led the military opposition to Hitler, including Stauffenberg, Schenkendorff, and Altenstadt. Building on Hitler’s ostensible consent to the use of Hiwis, Altenstadt declared : The present low-point in the attitude of the population can no longer be tolerated. A radical change in German policy is needed, especially in the [Great] Russian territories. . . . Without it, the attachment of over half a million Russians, Ukrainians, etc., to the Wehrmacht would constitute an inestimable danger. The colonel had cleverly turned the argument around : no longer were the Hiwis and Osttruppen deemed a military substitute for political warfare; political measures were declared essential because their absence would reverberate unfavourably on the morale and loyalty of the collaborators, whose help the Reich could no longer do without. Von Herwarth wasted no time in adding that military considerations ‘ demand the positive co-operation of the population. Russia can be beaten only by Russians.’ In this spirit the conference agreed that ‘ in the forefront of all demands stands the request for the setting of a new political goal [Zielsetzung] ’ : . . . the first and foremost task is to win the population to participate in the struggle against the Soviets. For this purpose, political pre­ requisites must be created which would make the struggle meaningful to the population. There is no doubt that they are willing to fight against the Soviets at or behind the front if we succeed in demonstrating to them that we have completely abandoned the methods heretofore employed. . . . Given the seriousness of the moment, the slogan for this [Russian] area can only be : Acceptance of the population as allies in the struggle against the Soviets, with sympathetic recognition of its own life [Eigenleben, i.e. autonomy ?] with the requisite political and economic consequences.12 Rosenberg, apparently impressed by the array of uniformed and bemedalled participants whom he counted as ‘ allies’, now proceeded to compose numerous memoranda urging the establishment of national (separatist) armies, the end of the kolkhoz system, and the promotion of private property in the East — a shallow set of proposals that might have seemed adequate a year or two earlier but in the winter of 1942-3 was indicative of his rigidity and inability to shake his initial approach, which remained evident in the emphasis 1 See above, p. 153. 2 Protocol, December 18, 1942. Schenkendorff reportedly declared that ‘ I cannot expect my men to fight on our side if their fellow-nationals or relatives are being treated like African slaves’ . (Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 86-7.)

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he placed on anti-Semitic and anti-Muscovite elements of policy and propaganda. His efforts, awkwardly marginal to the entire political warfare controversy, had little impact on actual practice. The Army elements were in a far more auspicious position to influence the course of events. Several participants felt prompted to record the ideas advocated at the pre-Christmas conference. Altenstadt’s memorandum has been referred to in other contexts. Its most compelling argument was the comparison of different policies and their effects in the E a st: he found (perhaps overstressing the beneficent and pacifying effects in the Crimea) that ‘ better treatment of prisoners, preferential treatment of deserters, consideration for commissars, prohibition of pointless collective punishment . . . rewards for meritorious service of military and civilian personnel, prevention of rape, despotism, brutality’, all produced so favourable an attitude that the population was ‘ ready to sacrifice their lives for the German cause’. However exaggerated this assertion, his general conclusion was in conformity with the evidence.1 Colonel von Tresckow, the Operations Officer of Army Group Centre who repeatedly proved his merit as a perceptive political analyst, likewise drafted a detailed summary of experiences and political recommendations. Never, he asserted dramatically, had an invader had such an excellent opportunity to win the sympathy of a conquered people; and rarely had an opportunity been so completely squandered. What are the causes of this deterioration ? (a) In the course of the occupation, the economic situation of the people has worsened. Horses and cattle have been taken from the peasants; often their last cow, too. The cities are starving, and daily needs cannot be bought. (b) Unwise treatment by the troops, e.g. reckless terror, wild requisitioning, burning of villages, etc. drive the population into the arms of the partisans, (c) Conscription of labour for service in Germany under conditions that have been amply exposed. . . . ( d ) Partisan counter-terror, combined with persuasive propaganda which increasingly stresses the national element; and therewith a withering of faith in the staying power of the German armed forces. . . . Yet even more important than all these was the ‘ main problem which at present absorbs the attention of the Russians : the lack of a uniform [einheitlich] political approach to the treatment of the Russian people’. Tresckow proceeded to describe the modest, physically 1 O K H /GenStdH /Gen.Q u./Abt.Kr.-Verw ., ‘ Aufzeichnung über die Ostfrage January 3, 1943, Document N G - 3 4 1 5 * ,

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and morally sane, and industrious character of the Russian people and how easy it could have been to lead them ; in spite of their simplicity, the thirst for knowledge, culture, and religious faith was strong among them. He urged recognition of these aspirations, promotion of indigenous self-government on an autonomous basis, and creation of a representative central administration (or separate administration for each republic), reliable from the German point of view, yet acting as a free agent.1 Others, with less political insight and concern, climbed on the bandwagon for strictly military reasons. In January 1943 a brief manual on the treatment of Hiwis appeared. Symptomatically for the ‘ collusion’ in opposition circles it contained, almost verbatim, sentences and phrases from the earlier memoranda of Gehlen, Tresckow, Stauffenberg, and Schenkendorff.12 Even the economic agencies acclaimed the new trend. Now WiStab Ost urged better treatment of Ostarbeiter, reduction of conscription quotas, extension of agrarian reforms, and ‘ psychological measures in the cultural field’ as inducements to the population in the East. For its own employees it ordered that the proper treatment of the population stands at the centre of [German economic] measures. . . . Care must therefore be taken to assure the decent and just treatment of the working indigenous population, and to avoid injury to their honour by use of whipping, chicanery, and similar measures.3 Even the German press — in what seems to have been an effort to help offset the Stalingrad defeat — praised the anti-Bolshevik zeal of the ‘ new allies’, the Eastern troops fighting with the Wehrmacht.4 The rear-area commanders now sought to implement some of the measures they had been advocating. Assured of the tacit support of Altenstadt and General Wagner, Tresckow experimented with new Russian military units and new propaganda slogans. Even in the South, which had not otherwise been distinguished by political 1 Heeresgebiet Mitte, la, ‘ Erfahrungen in der Verwaltung des Landes and politische Zielsetzung’ , December 25, 1942, 3 14 9 1/ 3 * , C R S . 2 [O KH /GenStdH /O rg.Abt.] Merkblatt für das Verhalten gegenüber Hilfs willigen’ (January 1943). See also OKH/GenStdH/Inspekteur für Erziehung und Ausbildung der russischen Verbände des Heeres, Grundsätzliche Leitsätze über Erziehung russischer Freiwilligenverbände [n.d.], signed by Major-General Assberg, himself a former Soviet colonel whom Herre helped promote to commander of an officer training school at Mariampor ; and O KH /GenStdH /Gen.Q u., Abt. K r.Verw. [Wagner], ‘ Landeseigene Hilfskräfte’ , February 9, 1942, 7 5 1 2 7 / 1 * , C R S . 3 W iStab Ost to Goring, January 1943, Document N O -34 70 * ; and W iStab Ost, ‘ Behandlung der Bevölkerung’ , February 8, 1943, W i/ID 2 .1 1 9 1 * , C R S . 4 Erwin Kirchhof, ‘ Neue Verbündete: Vom Einsatz der landeseigenen Verbände an der Ostfront’ , Das Reich, February 21, 1943.

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astuteness, a new spirit seemed to prevail. Field-Marshal von Kleist, with the experience of the more liberal Caucasus policy behind him, in mid-February 1943 issued a 15-point directive on the treatment of the population in the area of his Army Group ‘ A ’. The following week Field-Marshal von Manstein, his neighbour in Army Group South, echoed with an analogous order.1 Its thesis was, ‘ The population of the occupied Eastern territories . . . is to be treated as allies’. Appropriate social welfare, educational, administrative, and reconstruction measures were to be taken, the agrarian reform expanded, and religious and cultural life fostered. Gradually the new spirit permeated the lower echelons. As an army corps ordered in mid-March, Whoever among the indigenous population participates in the struggle against Bolshevism, be it with arms or with labour, is not our enemy but our fellow-fighter and fellow-worker in the struggle against the world-foe. . . . He who risks his life on our side is entitled to German comradeship and recognition.2 One by one, the armies in the field issued similar directives. Fourth Army reproduced an abstract of several lectures — ‘ Why We Must Have the Russian on Our Side’ and ‘ The Russian Charac­ ter’ — which were distributed with instructions on how to treat Osttruppen and Ostarbeiter.3 Second Army echoed the sentiments, listing mistreatment of prisoners and forced labourers, inadequacy of agrarian reform, closing of schools, and Einsatzgruppen activities as causes of disillusionment. We can master the wide Russian expanse which we have conquered only with the Russians and Ukrainians who live in it, never against their will.4 When the commander of Second Army, General Walter Weiss, sent an intelligent, detailed, though in no sense original, attack on German Ostpolitik to the Führer’s headquarters, he received a cautious reply from an officer of his acquaintance on Hitler’s staff. The weight of the message was that apparently ‘ at long last’ more 1 [Bfh. Heeresgruppe ‘ A ’] Von Kleist, ‘ Behandlung der Zivilbevölkerung im Operationsgebiet’ , February 17, 1943, E A P 9 9 /114 5*, C R S ; [Bfh. Heeresgruppe Süd] Von Manstein, ‘ Behandlung der Zivilbevölkerung im Operationsgebiet’ , February 26, 1943, W i/ID 2.20*, C R S . See also above, pp. 238 -4 1. # 2 X L I I I A K , ‘ Behandlung von Bevölkerung, Banden und Wirtschaftsgütern’, March 14, 1943, Document N O K W -5 I 5 * . 3 A O K 4, Ic/AO, ‘ Der deutsche Soldat und seine politische Aufgabe im Osten’ , M ay 19 4 3*, H L . 4 A O K 2, Ia [Gen. Harteneck], ‘ Ausnutzung des russischen und ukrainischen Menschen der besetzten Gebiete für die Kriegsführung’ , M ay 1 1, 1943, Document N O K W -2 4 8 4 1*.

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understanding for the problems of the East seemed to be developing at the Führerhauptquartier.1 By May of 1943 the ‘ realist’ campaign emanating from the Army had reached its peak. Sound and Fury The story of the Osttruppen is full of tragic paradoxes. Germany could have had at its disposal the largest number of Soviet citizens of military age ever to emerge from under their government’s control; yet of the millions of prisoners only a fraction was permitted to survive. Whatever their attitude towards the Soviet regime, after their experiences in German captivity only a relatively small propor­ tion saw their way clear to continuing the fight on the side of their captors. Many, if not most, of the indigenous collaborators volun­ teered initially for material reasons — often sheer survival and sustenance. Yet as an entity they were soon imbued with a genuine sense of mission and a cause to serve and became a powerful, if mythical, propaganda tool as ‘ national legions’ and ‘ armies of liberation’ and an equally powerful pressure group for political changes in German conduct. Indeed, the strictly military contribu­ tion of the Osttruppen, though perhaps not entirely nil, was neither as great as it might have been nor even as big as the German com­ mand expected. Historically, their major role was to act as a focus and a catalyst for active indigenous collaboration with the Germans and for German conversions to the ‘ realist’ camp. Equally paradoxical is the fact that, though the various Army moves fortified the status of Russians as soldiers under German command, most German officers in key positions remained un­ interested in, or even suspicious of, political warfare projects for any propaganda purposes. Nevertheless, the formal recognition of the Easterners as co-equals of German soldiers represented a distinct step out of the impasse which had been reached by mid-1942 : greater recognition and stress were now given to political and psychological factors. Moreover, the increasingly tangible contribution of the Easterners to the German war effort was expected to provide them with an irresistible argument for more authority and freedom, and to provide the Germans with a stake in their continued loyalty and morale, for whose sake sacrifices could be made. In the last analysis the military arguments were more compelling than the memoranda. The sword was mightier than the pen. And yet, considering the steam generated by courageous memo­ randa and pedestrian exhortations, by both outspoken and surreptitious directives, by the implicit challenge to the traditional Nazi outlook 1 Weiss to Engel, April 12, 19 43*, and Engel to Weiss, April 30, 19 43*, H L .

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on the East, and considering the number of men involved, of this enormous mountain only a mouse was born. The bulk of people in the occupied areas fared no better; most of them had lost faith in Germany and in a better tomorrow under its aegis. Welcome as they might the piecemeal measures instituted as a result of the new spirit of conciliation in the area of military government, they would scarcely revise their judgment of the occupiers on this ground alone. By late 1942, the indigenous population, which at first had been so deeply absorbed in local and personal concerns, began to be increasingly occupied with the question of the country’s political future. Reports multiplied on all echelons of the German civil and military apparatus in the East that patriotism was by no means limited to the Soviet side of the front. Even in the ‘ mercenary’ collaborator units, a German officer reported, the most important subject of discussion was, ‘ What shall become of Russia in the future ? What are we actually fighting for ? ’ 1 This problem indicated the limits of the political warfare drive. Its whole focus now shifted from the broad range of palliatives and inducements for collaboration, to the specific issues of a government-in-exile, political ‘ recognition’, and national sovereignty. Not inappropriately, Lieutenant-General Kinzel wrote the OKH in April 1943 that the various new regulations for the treatment of Hiwis and others . . . entirely miss the central issue. The basic issue is : ‘ What will become of our fatherland after the war ? ’ This is the question that over­ rides all else. Thoughts that an Easterner in the long run fights or works on the German side out of gratitude for liberation from Bolshevism, are entirely out of order. For the Easterner the question is : ‘ Do we come from Bolshevik slavery into German slavery, or are we fighting for a free and independent homeland of our own ? ’ 2 1 Document E 3a -7#, Y IV O . 2 Heeresgruppe Nord, la [Lt.-G en. Walter Kinzel] to Hellmich, April 16, 1943, Document N O K W -2 20 5*.

C H A P T E R XXVI

VLASOV MOVEMENT:

F I R S T PHASE

I don’t want to have waged war for four years to lose the trophy cup in the last five minutes for a vague hope [such as the Vlasov movement].— H it l e r , July i, 1943

Andrei Vlasov O f all events in German Ostpolitik and Soviet defection during the war, the Vlasov movement has received the greatest attention. Its history and the passions it aroused, what it did, and above all what it might have done — all this has been amply commented on by friend and foe.1 A brief review will suffice as a backdrop for the struggle it provoked among the German authorities. Andrei Andreevich Vlasov was a well-known Soviet general. He was a professional officer of peasant background, a Communist Party member from 1930 on, who in 1938 was assigned as military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek. Vlasov began his war-time service in the Ukraine, then commanded the 20th Army in the winter battle for Moscow, became famous as one if its defenders, and after his pro­ motion to lieutenant-general was shifted in early 1942 to the Volkhov Front, where he assumed command of the Second Assault Arm y.2 1 For the factually most reliable, though not entirely complete, account, see George Fischer, Soviet Opposition to Stalin (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1952) ; an earlier and perhaps more balanced interpretation by the same author is his series, Der Fall Wlassow (Berlin : Der Monat> 19 5 1, reprint from nos. 33-5). Jürgen Thorwald’s Wen sie verderben wollen (Stuttgart: SteingrübenVerlag, 1952) describes the same period with more attention to the German facets. While Thorwald introduces much new and valuable evidence, the reader has, unfortunately, no means of distinguishing genuine historical fact from the author’s own ‘ reconstructions’ of events and conversations. The earliest secondary study is David Chavchavadze, ‘ T he Vlassov Movement’, M S * (Yale University, 1950), generally friendly to its subject, well-informed but rather incomplete. An interest­ ing antidote to the Fischer volume is Paul W . Blackstock, ‘ German Covert Political Warfare Against the U .S .S .R .’ , M S * (Washington, 1954). A purely fictional account is Edwin Erich Dwinger, General Wlassow (Frankfurt : Dikreiter, 19 51). B. Dvinov [pseud.], Vlasovskoe dvizhenie v svete dokumentov (New York : the author, 1950) is a documented but one-sided attempt in Russian £migr£ politics to reduce the Vlasov movement to a German propaganda trick. Buchardt is an invaluable source, written soon after the German surrender with information also provided by other former German officials ; Buchardt’s information and inter­ pretation have, on the whole, stood up remarkably well. 2 For two English-language accounts of Vlasov prior to his capture, see Eve Curie, Journey Among Warriors (New York : Doubleday, 1943), p. 179 ; and Robert Magidoff, The Kremlin vs. The People (Garden C ity: Doubleday, 1953), pp. 28-30. See also Krasnaia Zvezda (Moscow), November 4 and 9, 1940 ; and Pravda (Moscow), January 25, 1942. 553

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It was after the decimation of this army that Vlasov, having hidden out for weeks, was captured by the Germans on July 12, 1942. He promptly impressed his interrogators as a man who could be ‘ used to the utmost’ . Within three weeks after his capture, he was trans­ ferred to Vinnitsa, where he collaborated with Colonel Vladimir Boiarskii, the former commander of the 41st Guard Division, in writing his first memorandum to the Germans — indeed, the only document issued over his name that was assuredly his own product. The memorandum opened with the assertion that the Stalin regime had lost popular and army support as a result of defeats and failures at home. Important segments in the army and among the civilian population, it proclaimed, were convinced of the futility of further warfare, which could only spell the doom of millions. Hence : The leadership of the Soviet armies, especially the commanders who in captivity can freely exchange opinions, are faced with the question of how the Stalin government could be overthrown and how a new Russia.should be built. They are all united in the purpose of overthrowing the Stalin regime and changing the form of government. There is but one question : whether to do so by leaning on Germany or upon England and the United States. To give written expression to such alternatives while being held a German captive promptly branded Vlasov as a man who was not ‘ a mere seeker after political glory and accordingly [would] never become a purchasable hireling and [would] never be willing to lead hirelings’. Indeed, this impression of Vlasov was uniformly confirmed even by his most bitter political opponents. What inclined Vlasov towards Germany was the fact that, unlike the Western Allies, the Reich was just then engaged in the active demolition of the Soviet regime — precisely the goal to which he now addressed himself. He and Boiarskii clearly warned that their support was predicated on a change of German policy : The question of Russia’s future, however, is unclear. It can lead to an orientation on the United States and England if Germany produces no clarity in this question. Vlasov went on to stress the elemental patriotism of the Russian people and the belief that Stalin would fight to the bitter finish under conditions that would make popular revolt impossible. It was the Soviet masses — military as well as civilian — who, according to Vlasov and Boiarskii, must be made ‘ the nucleus of an inner [i.e. indigenous] force’ to oppose Stalin. Their suggestion was ‘ to create a centre for the establishment of a Russian army, and to begin its formation’. In addition to its military contribution, Vlasov

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added, the Germans would welcome it because it would remove the stigma of treason that was attached to service for the enemy.1 In substance Vlasov had said what the German advocates of political warfare had come to propound after a year of war and frustration. The basic outlook revealed in this first memorandum was not thrust upon him by German indoctrination, for he had as yet met few if any of the ‘ politicals’. Now, however, they appeared promptly. Strikfeldt was attached to Vlasov; Roenne enthusiastic­ ally notified Wehrmacht Propaganda; Hilger was sent to interro­ gate Vlasov on August 7. The conclusions drawn from all this activity remained strikingly unanimous: the Soviet regime would fight to the finish; its resources were greater than the Reich had estimated; while it was not too late for a political ‘ centre’ to be established abroad, no time could be lost.12 The ‘ Free Russia’ proponents cheered the discovery, and the propagandists were content to have found in Vlasov a suitable and resounding ‘ megaphone’ . The extremists, on the other hand, sensed a danger in his existence and demands. Vlasov was no puppet: therein lay, from the German point of view, both his potential value and his challenge. A relatively ‘ autonomous’ figure, as yet untarnished by association with German abuses and atrocities, he could appeal to the Soviet population more successfully than could the Germans. But as a leader with a will and a following, he and his movement could also develop a dynamic of their own and — precisely because they might be successful — could become potentially distinct from or even hostile to the interests of the German leadership. Given the situation in Berlin, it was natural that it devolved upon Wehrmacht Propaganda to take the initiative in ‘ promoting’ Vlasov. The initial phase of the Vlasov movement — approximately the first year after his capture — was in the hands of men like Grote and Strikfeldt (who was now transferred to WPr IV). By early September 1942, Vlasov had been persuaded to issue a leaflet 1 Vlasov and Boiarskii, memorandum [no title], Vinnitsa, August 3, 1942 ; German transl., A O K 16, Ic, circular, September 12, 1942, Himmler file 26*. T he same file includes the memorandum of Colonel Mikhail Shapovalov, the commander of a Soviet rifle corps, captured near Maikop on August 13. Shapovalov urged the establishment of a Russian provisional government ‘ with new ideas’ , the formation of an anti-Bolshevik Russian army, and a political programme that would include non-collectivized agriculture and private economic initiative and ownership. 2 Hilger, interrogation of Vlasov, August 8, 1942, cited in Blackstock, op. cit. ch. vi, pp. 20 -1. See also Iu. Denike, ‘ K istorii vlasovskogo dvizheniia’, Novyi Zhurnal (New York), xxxv (1953), 275 ; and RM fdbO ., II Ic [Labs], ‘ Vermerk betr. General W lassow’ , November 25, 1944, Document N O -3 12 5 * .

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. iv

appealing to his former comrades-in-arms : after reviewing the hardships all had endured under Soviet rule, it called for an ‘ honour­ able peace with Germany’. Asserting that Stalin was waging a futile war in the interests of England and America, it held open the prospect of a better future and ‘ a new anti-Stalin government’. 1 Probably not all in this leaflet was to Vlasov’s liking; it was written in large measure by German propaganda officers; yet he had committed himself psychologically and had, as it were, to take the consequences of his decision. Characteristically for the German backers of a Wlassow-Aktion (as it became known), even the first leaflet constituted a symbiosis of the propaganda-oriented tacticians, willing to make concessions of expediency, and of the genuine advocates of a present ‘ Russian de Gaulle’ and a future ‘ Free Russia’. Though numerically pre­ dominant, the utilitarians were generally tactful enough to leave doubt about their long-range intentions. In fact, the distinction between the two groups was increasingly hard to perceive: Vlasov proved to be the magnet that momentarily united them. The impact of the Vinnitsa leaflet was reported as moderately encouraging. Although such statistics were easy to concoct, appar­ ently the number of Soviet deserters increased.2 This success, or at least the claims of success, circulated by Wehrmacht Propaganda, helped overcome the fact that the leaflet had been distributed without the approval of Keitel, Jodi, or even Wedel, the head of WPr. It also encouraged its authors to take the next step. Vlasov was now transferred to the WPr compound in Berlin, where he met other Russian collaborators and activists like Zykov, who became the leader of a ‘ left ’ w ing; Kazantsev, then the N T S spokesman who represented the ‘ right’, and other captive Soviet generals like MajorGeneral Vasilii Fiodorovich Malyshkin.3 As the result of daily discussions, the Russians gradually evolved a more systematic out­ look of their own, while simultaneously the German officers who worked with them were trying to remodel their views and values. It was Grote who suggested formulating a specific political programme for a future Russian liberation committee. As early as September one of the leaflets of WPr was intended to 1 T h e leaflet, addressed to ‘ Comrade Officers ! Comrades of the Soviet Intelligentsia !’ was signed by Vlasov as former commander of the Second Assault Arm y, Vinnitsa, September 10, 1942 ; original leaflet, [O K W /W P r IV ], 480 R A B /IX /4 2 * ; German trans., Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 14 9 -51. 2 T he actual significance of the leaflet defies definitive assessment, as its use coincided with the German advance in the North Caucasus and against Stalingrad, where the number of Soviet deserters increased for strictly military reasons. 3 See above, p. 526 ; also Thorwald, op. cit.y and Fischer, op. cit.

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set off general discussion about the possibilities of concluding peace and thereby paralysing the Red Army’s will to resist. For this purpose a number of points are raised in the form of a programme which can provide a basis for the Russians’ image of the future. Complying with Vlasov’s request not to include a direct appeal for desertion, Grote and his associates formulated ‘ 13 points’ which, in addition to the cessation of war, demanded abolition of terror and collective agriculture, increase of consumer goods production, ‘ social justice and protection from exploitation’, and economic and cultural commerce with the rest of Europe.1 Compared with some of the earlier propaganda, this was certainly a more palatable approach; at the same time, its use no doubt helped dispel some of Vlasov’s reservations about his German sponsors. In the long run, however, at least tacit consent from higher echelons was required for the systematic pursuit of a political war­ fare operation involving Vlasov’s name. Hence the Wehrmacht Propaganda staff and their sympathizers spent the next weeks publicizing Vlasov among their superiors and fellow-officers. Invariably their memoranda forwarded to the very top were returned with negative comments scribbled in Keitel’s purple pencil. Finally, in mid-November Keitel replied without equivocation that he not only rejected the plan for the Wlassow-Aktion but also forebade such memoranda ‘ finally and irrevocably’ . The first effort to launch Vlasov had failed. The small circle of like-minded ‘ Vlasovites’ in and out of Wehrmacht Propaganda was careful not to force a showdown. As Grote recalls, ‘ the pro-Vlasov Initiativgruppe was elastic, pulling [Vlasov] back whenever necessary, feeling that it was better to beat a temporary retreat than to have him “ defeated” by other German agencies’ .12 Since it was impossible to obtain permission for the establishment of a liberation committee or government-in-exile, the next step was to conduct propaganda as if such a committee did exist. Politically, this might have the same effect upon the Soviet population; propagandistically, it might satisfy the knights of the double standard ; tactically, the success of such an endeavour might later be used as an argument for the actual establishment of such a committee. Thus in December 1942 the so-called Smolensk Committee was born. 1 [O K W /W Pr IV ,] leaflet 482 R A B /IX /42 [September 1942] addressed to soldiers, officers, and political officers of the Red Army. The inclusion of political officers marked a substantial departure from the earlier commissar decree. 2 Grote, letter to author, December 19, 1953. See also Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 156 -6 3 ; and Eugen Dürksen, ‘ Smolensker Komitee’ , M S * , IfZ.

G ,R .R .— 2 O

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The Committee was meant to be a fiction, though its Russian members, isolated as they were at their Viktoriastrasse outpost, were not aware of this. In preparation for a solemn opening of the Russian Committee, a proclamation and a new programme were drawn up, based largely on Grote’s September 1942 appeal, but also taking account of some of Vlasov’s own pet ideas, Zykov’s radicalism, and Kazantsev’s solidarism. The appeal concluded with the enum­ eration of three goals : the destruction of Stalinism, the conclusion of ‘ honourable peace’ , and Russian participation in the New Europe ‘ without Bolsheviks and capitalists’ — a convenient formula that would suit equally the Nazis, Solidarists, and anti-Stalinist Com­ munists. Whatever soul-searching preceded their acceptance of this ‘ Smolensk Manifesto’, Vlasov and his colleagues were in the end persuaded to sign, and on December 27, 1942, it came into existence without fanfare, the signatures being affixed not in Smolensk but in Berlin, and the expected festivities being replaced by some glasses of beer in a dingy tavern. This background, however, the outside world did not know. For all practical purposes, a new phase of political warfare could now begin.1 Rosenberg and the ‘ Russian Liberation Movement ’ Because of the persistently hostile attitude at Führer head­ quarters, the sponsors of the Vlasov enterprise looked for support to the Ostministerium, which was itself seeking allies to offset the encroachments of Koch and Bormann. The contacts and discussions between Rosenberg’s staff and the Wehrmacht propagandists revealed the ambivalence of the Ostministerium’s representatives. On the one hand, they wanted to back any political warfare effort, especially if it provided them with new authority and a new ‘ ally’ . On the other hand, they were reluctant to nurture Great Russian imperialism in the person of Vlasov, who, they feared, might eventually bring to naught the separatist projects of Rosenberg’s proteges and the Ostminister’s own plans for remaking the map of Eastern Europe. Within the OMi, the lord-protector of the separatist spokesmen for the non-Russian nationalities of the U .S.S.R . was Gerhard von Mende, a Baltic German of considerable erudition and the author of a study on the Turkic and Moslem groups in the Soviet Union. He was teaching in Berlin when the Leibbrandt group secured his 1 T ext in Fischer, op. cit. pp. 59-60 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 170-5 ; Novoe Slovo (Berlin), March 17, 1943. See also Boris Nicolaevsky, ‘ Porazhencheskoe dvizhenie 1941-1945 godov*, N ovyi Zhurnal (New York), xix, 214-17 ; interviews O-4, G-6.

CH. X X V I

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services for the future Ostministerium. Distinctly political-minded and a skilful manipulator, he became the leading spokesman for the nationalists from the Caucasus and Central Asia. He was wellsuited to direct such a semi-legitimate effort; as Thorwald correctly notes, Mende felt more at home in this more or less unreal world based on hopes for the future than in the immediate economic or military problems of the day. The milieu of the Rosenberg Ministry, which allowed occasional trips to Turkey, provided him with the proper atmosphere and contacts for his work. He and his aides thus represented the separatist counterpart to the ‘ all-Russian’ (and ‘ Great Russian ’) wing.1 At the beginning, when Germany spurned the help of the old emigre leaders who were still willing to work with the Reich, Mende’s work consisted largely of personal contacts with individual refugees. Paradoxically, he maintained contact with some of the emigres whom Rosenberg denounced for participating in the Schulenburg con­ ference of May 1942. Indeed, in the wake of this conference, Mende ‘ took over’ and prepared ‘ national committees’ for each group — the four Caucasian ethnic units, the Central Asians collectively bracketed as Turkestanis, the Volga and Crimean Tatars, and the Kalmyks. For a long time, these committees were as fictitious and unrecognized as was the Vlasov committee for the Russians. Many of the initial groups were dissolved because of policy differences; others fell apart; in still others friction existed between old emigres and the Soviet-trained prisoners of war. Yet the very existence of these committees was symptomatic of the orientation of the Ostministerium.2 To Vlasov, as to many Soviet men, the nationality problem seemed at first not to exist. The memoirs and recollections of German contemporaries substantiate Vlasov’s bewilderment at Grote’s efforts to insert in the Smolensk Manifesto a clause on ‘ national [i.e. ethnic]’ freedom. National self-determination and cultural autonomy were self-evident for h im ; on the other hand, political separatism was an alien concept he did not understand and intuitively rejected. One may also adduce the recollections of Leibbrandt, who was forced out of office before the conflict over the nationality question had reached a climax in the final stages of the Vlasov movement. According to him, the Vlasov he knew in 19421943 ‘ was an upstanding patriot, not a sycophant, nor a Bolshevik, [who] readily agreed that there “ must never be any oppression of nationalities in the future” ’. Rosenberg’s men thus found no overt 1 Interviews G -6, G -8, G -30 ; Thorwald, op. cit. p. 1 1 1 . 2 See also above, p. 137.

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reason for opposing the Vlasov venture, but had strong reservations about it.1 The necessity of a Russian ‘ liberation movement’ was pounded home, as shown earlier, at the Army-Ostministerium talks in December 1942. Tresckow’s draft programme included a recom­ mendation for . . . the establishment of a central Russian self-government or several such administrations for various areas (e.g. Belorussia, Ukraine) under German military guidance. Assurance of, outwardly, far-reaching independence of action for this new Russian leadership, which would have to call for the building of a new Russia and a rejection of Stalin and Bolshevism.12 Here was something of a compromise : the alternatives were a central, all-Russian committee under Vlasov’s leadership, or a set of committees for each of the larger nationalities, with Vlasov as a primus inter pares. Having sanctioned the existence of the embryonic and semi-formalized national committees in the Mende orbit, and encouraged by the various military government propaganda officers, the Rosenberg Ministry came to espouse a formula which endorsed the Vlasov operation on condition that it be restricted to the Great Russians and that parallel efforts be promoted for the non-Russian groups. On January 12, 1943, Rosenberg finally consented to back the Vlasov experiment to the extent of having the Smolensk Mani­ festo used in leaflet form. It was his implicit understanding that (1) the Vlasov appeal would be limited to the Great Russians, with the Ostministerium continuing to wield its monopoly over the nonRussian areas and peoples of the U .S.S.R . ; (2) it would constitute merely a propaganda manoeuvre ; and (3) its propaganda would be addressed exclusively to the Soviet side of the front, not to the German-held areas, and in particular not to the territories under the Ostministerium’s jurisdiction.3 1 Interviews G -6, G - 1 2 ; Thorwald, op. cit. p. 1 7 1. 2 Heeresgruppe Mitte, la [Tresckow], ‘ Erfahrungen in der Verwaltung des Landes und politische Zielsetzung', December 25, 1942, 3 14 9 1/ 3 * , C R S . 3 Interviews G -6, G - 1 1 , G -12 , G -23 ; Thorwald, op. cit. p. 189. Cf. also Rosenberg, Portrait, p. 305. Thorwald appears to be in error in attributing this scheme to a Rosenberg-Hitler conference on December 22, 1942 ; there is no evidence that such a meeting took place. In a semi-official review of the Vlasov movement prepared in the OMi, Labs wrote in November 1944 : ‘ Politically [Vlasov] was to be the exponent of the [Great] Russian people in the struggle against Bolshevism. . . . The attitude of Reich Minister Rosenberg was that Vlasov's utilization was to be [only] of a military nature and that there could be no objection to [it]. . . .' (Document N O -3 12 5 * .) Indeed, the fact that the entire operation was outlined to him as a device by and for the Arm y probably helped influence Rosenberg to endorse it.

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Promptly on the heels of this decision a number of memoranda were drafted at the Rosenberg Ministry in order to submit to the Führer a comprehensive plan for political warfare. In substance, they again advised the promotion of private property, freedom of religion, and finally the assurance of ‘ equality’ among the nations of the U .S.S.R . The document which Rosenberg sent Hitler on January 16 reflected these aims. It restated over several pages the major arguments voiced by the military government commanders: popular resentment at the methods of Ostarbeiter conscription; lack of consumer goods, hostility towards the kolkhoz system ; abuse and incompetence of German officialdom. On its part [Rosenberg continued] the military situation has proved the expediency of using the Russians, Ukrainians, Caucasians, etc. in the occupied areas in considerable numbers to fight the partisans, but also in active front-line combat. . . . These men all raise the same question: if we risk our lives against Bolshevik slavery, we must know what we are fighting fo r; to transform Bolshevik into German slavery can be no lasting incentive to fight. Rosenberg had reproduced the words of Tresckow, Stauffenberg, and Gehlen almost verbatim ; and as if to lend authority to his statement, he informed Hitler that on this point there exists complete agreement among all responsible observers in the Army Group Rear Areas, in the OKW, OKH, OKL, as well as in the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. The pro­ posals to assure greater voluntary participation in the long run amount to the formation, as it were, of a counter-government, with the front line [commanders] thinking above all of a Russian counter-government. These proposals have been made for months; they are exceedingly concrete, and they are being justified especially by the fact that the greater number of Hiwis, who have millions of dependants in the country, makes requisite such a measure in the interests of securing the German front. . . . As an idea, this was not new at a ll; as a memorandum from Rosen­ berg to Hitler, it was unique. Having said all this, however, Rosenberg went on to inject his own nationality scheme into the presentation. It seems impossible to create a counter-government only for the [Great] Russians. For certain political and military reasons the members of various nationalities have been separated from the mass of the prisoners ; notably, legions have been established for the anti-Bolshevik and antiMuscovite peoples, i.e. Turkestanis, Crimean Tatars, and Caucasians. The national sentiments of all non-Russian peoples require the pledge

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of a free homeland for them without the Muscovite yoke. For the above nationalities, national working committees have been created, with which the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories has — unofficially, it is true — been working (newspapers, interpreters, political education, etc.). Hence Rosenberg suggested that, if ‘ it appears necessary for us to create a Russian anti-Bolshevik centre and to confirm it[s existence] officially,* it would be necessary to form and proclaim for all to see the various national representations side by side with the Russian. . . . ’ He believed that the Russians could be induced to accept their being restricted to what he considered the Great Russian ethnic territory if the new political arrangement were proclaimed by Hitler himself.1 The problem of national committees — one or several — was by no means resolved. Momentarily it receded in the face of an un­ expected development. Having secured Rosenberg’s consent, Wehrmacht Propaganda rushed to produce millions of leaflets signed by the phantom Smolensk Committee and appealing to Russians as fellow-Russians. Within ten days, German planes had begun dropping them at and behind enemy lines. Now a number of German planes, having Tost their bearings’, dropped the leaflets ‘ by mistake’ over German-occupied territory, in violation of the agreement which had stipulated their use only against enemy troops. The ‘ mistake’ was prearranged, and credit for it belongs largely to Strik-Strikfeldt.2 For better or worse, the Smolensk Committee had been publicly launched and had become a political factor, inasmuch as large segments of the Soviet population under German control were now aware of its existence. That it actually lived only on paper and in the minds of a few men, the people in the East could not know. About January 28, 1943, Rosenberg learned of the ‘ mistake’ and, the very next day, he demanded both an investigation and punish­ ment of the culprits. The inquiry was dragged out so that no evidence could be found, and the more momentous tragedy of Stalingrad overshadowed it. Rosenberg was sufficiently put out to ask for an audience with H itler: above all he feared th&t the ‘ Russialovers’ were trying to achieve a fa it accompli by proclaiming the Smolensk Committee as a new political agency responsible for, or 1 Rosenberg, ‘ Aktennotiz für den Führer*, January 16, 1943, Document C X L I V - 4 3 3 * , C D JC . 2 Interviews G -5 , H -39 1 ; Buchardt, p. 127. Zykov had known of the im­ pending strike in advance and one evening mysteriously told a colleague at Viktoriastrasse : ‘ Now the little genie has been let out of the bottle*.

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representative of, all the Soviet Union. He was much aroused, as he explained in a letter to Keitel a few months later. After the appeals of General VlaSov had been mistakenly dropped [he wrote], in violation of the agreement, also in the area occupied by us, this [Vlasov] enterprise became known everywhere. I told General Hellmich on February 26, 1943, that I deemed it impossible that General Vlasov with his people should remain any longer in Berlin. . . . I want to help prevent a political development in the East which, under certain conditions, would let the German people face some form of centralism comprising all the peoples of the East. The meaning of our policy, it seems to me, can only be to further an organic development that gives no new food to Great Russian imperialism but, on the contrary, weakens it by considering other, just non-Russian interests and restricts the Russian people to the Lebensraum it is entitled to.1 Rosenberg protested but could not stop the Army. Neither his enemies at Hitler’s headquarters nor his rivals at Wehrmacht Propa­ ganda would listen. The leaflet distribution ushered in a more active phase of the Vlasov movement which was stimulated by the agonizing self-examination that engulfed the Reich in the wake of Stalingrad. Long-range ideological goals were postponed indefinitely in favour of a more immediate exploitation of the East. In this context, it was possible to argue, ‘ exploitation ’ of the Vlasov situation was a natural measure of German self-interest. The details of the Rosenberg-Hitler conference on February 8, 1943, remain obscure; no protocol is available. The more positive of two versions is contained in a second-hand memorandum which SS Brigadeführer Zimmermann, a senior political officer at the OMi, addressed to Himmler as a supplement to his protocol of the con­ ference of December 18. According to this version, Rosenberg obtained Hitler’s consent to the creation of ‘ a kind of national committee ’ — not for actual self-government, but as a ‘ token ’ of eventual plans for autonomy ‘ of some sort ’ — one for the Ukraine, and another in the area of Army Group Centre for Russia. ‘ At present the primary purpose of these national committees shall be in the field of propaganda’,*Zimmermann reported, adding that the plans also involved the token consolidation of collaborator troops into a ‘ Russian Army of Liberation’.12 It would seem that Zimmermann’s version was overly definite. Another report, by Körner to Goring, gave a more moderate and probably more truthful presentation : Rosenberg, it averred, now

.

1 Rosenberg to Keitel, July 17, 19 43*. See also Thorwald, op cit. p. 19 1. 2 Zimmerman to Himmler, n.d. [about February 12, 1943], Himmler file 57*.

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recognized that ‘ the power of Bolshevism can be overcome only by actively utilizing the indigenous population in the struggle’ — an idea that had become current in the ‘ widest circles and is especially being promoted by the Wehrmacht’ . He would have granted autonomy to the Baltic states and established a separate national committee and legion for each, the Russians and Ukrainians, largely for propaganda purposes. Körner claimed (correctly, it seems) that Hitler had made no decision but merely requested Rosenberg to submit further drafts and proposals.1 Rosenberg’s real predicament was amply apparent at a session with his main advisers two days later. On the one hand, he feared that Vlasov and Wehrmacht Propaganda would make away with the whole political issue and leave him and the separatists out of the running. On the other hand, he realised that the Vlasov operation was gaining a momentum he could never marshal for his proteges, and he might therefore do well to exploit it so as to gain for his national committees a legalized and publicized existence. Finally — and this was symptomatic of his approach — he remained ambiguous on the question of a Ukrainian committee : he needed it as a counter­ weight to the Russians, yet he was afraid to establish one in Kiev, Rovno, or Khar’kov lest it be subverted by extreme nationalists whose interests differed from those of the Reich. His answer finally was to reject the creation of a Ukrainian National Committee (or even advisory councils on the district and county level), but to favour a Ukrainian committee operating outside the Ukraine.12 Leibbrandt, who with Mende, Kleist, and Kinkelin attended the meeting, restated the problem in terms of the two leaflets dropped at the behest of Wehrmacht Propaganda.3 In view of their success and the popular expectations they had aroused, he began, ‘ OKW / WPr urgently suggests the actual formation of a national committee, so that the propaganda on its behalf is not recognized as a bluff and rapidly boomerangs’. He proposed the formation of a Russian committee in Orel or Smolensk, with an Ostministerium pleni­ potentiary assigned to it; at the same time, separate national 1 Körner to Goring, February 20, 1943, Document C X L V a -3 0 *, C D JC . On the Baltic autonomy problem, see above, pp. 192-6. 2 R M f d b O . , I3 [K in k e lin ], ‘ A u fz e ic h n u n g ü b e r d ie B e s p r e c h u n g b e im H e r r n M in is t e r am 10. F e b r u a r 1943*, F e b r u a r y 12, 1943, E A P 99/408*, C R S . 3 T h e tw o leaflets w e r e th e S m o le n s k M a n ife s to a n d a n o th e r a p p e a l issu e d o v e r V l a s o v ’s a n d M a ly s h k in ’s s ig n a tu re o n J a n u a r y 30, 1943. T h e latte r leaflet so u g h t to n e u tra lize so m e o f th e ‘ c o lo n ia list* p ro p a g a n d a b y d e v e lo p in g th e slo g an , ‘ T h e R u s s ia n p e o p le is a n e q u a l m e m b e r o f th e fa m ily o f fre e p e o p le s in th e N e w E u r o p e * , an d p ro c e e d in g to q u o te fro m H it le r ’ s sp e e ch e s an d d e n o u n c e C h u r c h ill a n d R o o s e v e lt. T h e r e is n o e v id e n c e th a t V la s o v o r M a ly s h k in a c tu a lly w ro te o r e v e n sig n e d th is less a d ro itly c o m p o se d a p p e a l.

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committees would be formed for the Ukrainians and Caucasians. Leibbrandt summarized the plan concisely : It is to start from the principle that all the peoples of the Soviet Union are partners with equal rights in the European family of peoples [a sur­ prising departure from earlier views]. The [Great] Russians thus no longer stand above the other peoples of the Soviet Union but among and under them [unter ihnen, a wording that permits the implication of both ‘ among’ and ‘ under’].1 In the following weeks, as the decision on the national committees hung in the balance, the Ostministerium proceeded with its plans for the creation simultaneously of a Russian committee — including Vlasov and other defector generals — and a Ukrainian committee. Whereas the statutes for the Ukrainian body were easily drafted, the two major problems were how such a body could operate in the face of Erich Koch’s policy in the Ukraine, and what representative or renowned nationalists could be included in the committee while the OUN was in substance waging a sub rosa struggle against the Reich.2 While these problems were being considered, it became increasingly clear that the fate of the Ukrainian committee also depended on two decisions likely to be taken at the very apex of the Nazi pyram id: the outcome of the bitter Rosenberg-Koch dispute and the fate of the Vlasov movement. Approaching the Climax From the German point of view, the effect of the Smolensk Manifesto was a salutary one. Promptly several army agencies in the East demanded to know why it was not bolstered by articles in the indigenous, German-sponsored press and by public rallies. Even Leibbrandt had to acknowledge that the effect of the Russian leaflets was ‘ very good’. The monthly summary from the various areas of military government reported in exceptionally glowing terms (perhaps somewhat exaggerated in Berlin, ad usum delphini) concern­ ing the impact of the Smolensk appeal on the civilian population. According to Army Group ‘ A ’, the appeal ‘ finds the strongest interest. The population expects further publications and measures 1 Leibbrandt, ‘ Russisches Nationalkomitee,> February 12, 1943, E A P 99/55*, CR S. 2 T h e key figure in these plans was the head of the Ukrainian desk in the Ostministerium, Dr. Kinkelin. See his report to Rosenberg on a conversation with Ohlendorf, March 17, 1943, regarding S D support in screening Ukrainian person­ nel for the committee ; and his memorandum on possible members of the com­ mittee, n.d. (Documents C X L V a -3 2 * and C X L V a -7 7 * , C D JC ) ; also interviews G -6, G - n ; and John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, J9 3 9 -J 9 4 5 (New York : Columbia University Press, 1955), p. 168,

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in this sense.’ Army Group Centre reported that the WlassowAktion met with popular approval, but that ‘ uniform guidance’ of all measures was essential. Army Group North likewise found that ‘ here, too, the operation of General Vlasov stands in the forefront of interest. It is considered urgently necessary to make the activity of the committee genuine, so that our propaganda does not lose all credibility among the population.’ 1 The Initiativgruppe now arranged for Vlasov to go on a trip through the occupied territory, where he would address the popu­ lation and the Osttruppen — which, though still dispersed into units of no larger than battalion size, were now euphemistically called ‘ Russian Army of Liberation’ (known by its Russian initials as ROA) and were intended to be the military — and equally fictitious — counterpart to the Smolensk Committee. If in matter of fact and law, the ROA (as George Fischer appropriately labels it) was in its ‘ phantom stage’, in the consciousness of its members and of many Germans, it none the less assumed symbolic and substantive meaning. With some reservations, Vlasov’s trip was a success. No longer a prisoner, he operated as a ‘ free’ agent and talked to many Russians; he also had a chance to present his case to Germans of such rank as Field-Marshal Kluge. After a public address in Smolensk, Vlasov proceeded to Mogilev, where he lectured before a group of Russian officers. According to an internal German report, he spoke in favour of an honest alliance with Germany. ‘ He did not want a resurrection of the old [tsarist] regime, as some emigres might imagine it; he rejected capitalism just as he rejected Bolshevism.’ In strong language he stated in the presence of German officials : ‘ The Russian people lived, lives, and shall live. It will never be possible to reduce it to the status of a colonial people.’ Then Vlasov addressed a smaller group of German officials and lashed out against the ‘ major abuses’ of German policy. ‘ He believed’, the report continued, ‘ that without the co-operation of the population in the occupied territories . . . Germany would in the course of years lose the war through attrition of men and materiel. . . . I f Germany has no intention of enslaving or colonizing [the Soviet Union], this fact must immediately be expressed in authoritative statements and corresponding deeds.’ The report on this address received considerable attention. Field-Marshal Küchler agreed that ‘ the mission of General Vlasov must end in failure if clear directives on Germany’s policy towards 1 L e ib b r a n d t , op. cit. ; O K H / G e n S t d H / G e n . Q u . / A b t . K r . - V e r w . , ‘ M o n a t s ­ b e ric h te d e r H e e r e s g r u p p e n fü r M ä r z 1 9 4 3 ’ , O K W / 7 3 4 * , C R S .

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Russia are not issued soon’ . Generalkommissar Litzmann of Estonia and the Foreign Office representative at Lohse’s head­ quarters, Adolf Windecker, concurred that the most urgent task was to provide a satisfactory answer to the population’s question: 4What about our future ?’ 1 Upon returning to Berlin in mid-March, Vlasov wrote what appears to have been a bitter report. Its only available version, given by Thorwald, seems credible in the light of other materials.2 It caused some German circles to resent Vlasov more than ever. The mass of the Russian population [he wrote], especially the educated strata, now look on this war as a German war of conquest as a result of which the conquered Russian territory would pass to Germany, Russia would disappear as a state, and the Russian would be reduced to a white slave. German propaganda counters these assertions with no positive programme. . . . Hatred of Bolshevism alone can no longer mobilize the Russian people. The population wants to know why it should fight and spill its blood — for what sort of new Russia. 1 Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Hauptarbeitsgruppe Ostland, Sonder­ kommando Heeresgruppe Mitte, ‘ Bericht des Generals Wlassow in Mogilew', March 24, 19 43*, H L ; V A A Windecker, ‘ Bericht', April 18, 19 4 3*, H L . W in­ decker wrote the Foreign Office the next day that ‘ an increasing number of voices assert that the present stage of the war in the East is being decided largely in political terms. . . . Hence we must do everything to strengthen the genuine and devoted collaboration of the people aiding us.' (Windecker to A A , April 19, 1943, Docu­ ment N G -2 7 2 1 * .) 2 Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 206-9. Thorwald mistakenly asserts that Vlasov returned to Berlin by March 10 : the above report from Mogilev cites his speech delivered there on March 13. On the other hand, the fact that Vlasov did submit a report is borne out by independent sources. The Goebbels Diaries have an entry for April 29, 1943, to the effect that Vlasov ‘ has been pretty much shelved by the Ministry for the East. One cannot but be astounded at the lack of political instinct in our central Berlin administration.’ ([Garden City : Doubleday, 1948], p. 347.) See also Buchardt, p. 127. The fragment of another memorandum by Vlasov, Malyshkin, and Zhilenkov (as chairman, secretary, and member of the Russian Committee, respectively), available in the original Russian, was apparently submitted to the Ostministerium ; its contents suggest that it dates from the same period. It urged the establishment of a compact Russian Arm y of Liberation, with units up to division size under their own command, with their own insignia and uniform (if only, they argued, because the wearing of a German uniform ‘ is being considered by the population and the volunteers themselves as an act of treason to the fatherland'). On the political side, it demanded the public proclamation of the Committee's existence, goals, and programme ; suggested an approach to a number of specified captive generals and officers who were likely to join the Committee ; and paid at least lip-service to the idea of a Nazi-led New Europe. On the crucial nationality question, it argued for the ‘ undesirability of organizing separate national com­ mittees (Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, Uzbek, etc.)' because their effect would be to splinter rather than unite all the forces struggling for the overthrow of Bolshevism. Taking for granted the right of self-determination of all Soviet nationalities, the memorandum urged that borders and future political organization be left open ‘ until after victory*. (Vlasov, Malyshkin, Zhilenkov, memorandum, fragment, n.d. [probably March 1943], Document N O K W -356 9 *.)

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Repeating substantially the same criticisms he had levelled in Mogilev against forced labour, abuse in local administration, arbi­ trary arrests, and terror (this coincidence lends further credence to the Thorwald text), he continued : All this has produced a radical change in the attitude of the population towards Germany. It is necessary to change [German] policy towards the Russian people and to give it faith in co-operation with all the peoples of Europe. It seemed that everyone — Germans and Russians alike — was driven independently to the same conclusions, the same formulas for political warfare and for a radical change in Ostpolitik. No one stopped to wonder whether the situation was at all ‘ reversible ’ and whether even the most generous and enlightened conduct in the East could either persuade the population that the Germans were a lesser evil than the Soviets, or dilute the patriotism and hatred that animated the Red Army. Perhaps as a didactic device rather than an honest appraisal, Vlasov added that the Osttruppen could not be expected to have confidence in the Germ ans; nevertheless ‘ today they can still be won for the great struggle. Tomorrow will be too late.’ 1 While the Vlasov movement was gaining publicity and support in German quarters, competitors arose to vie with the captive general for leadership of the Russian defector movement. Some Russian reactionary emigres refused to ‘ recognize’ Vlasov and his aides because they deemed them to be products and unwitting hand­ maidens of Communism. The separatist national committees as well as pro-fascist Cossack leaders like Ataman Peter Krasnov opposed Vlasov’s claim to represent all the peoples of the Soviet Union. Demagogues and would-be war-lords in the occupied areas advanced their own candidacies for leadership.2 Even German officials of Russian background sought support for their private political ‘ liberation’ movements.3 1 In 1943, a number of memoranda were submitted to German authorities by a variety of collaborating officials and private persons. See, for instance, Bezirks­ leiter Pavlov of Pochep, ‘ Denkschrift’, February 11, 1 943* ; Vladimir Aksenov, ‘ Vorstand des Ostrow-Gebietes’ [letter addressed to Hitler], n.d. [presumably spring 1943], Document Occ E -8 *, Y IV O ; and Professor Dmitrii Sosharskii, ‘ Ansichten über die deutsche Politik im Zusammenhang mit Russland und der sogenannten Befreiungsbewegung*, Document Occ E -6 *, Y IV O . 2 These included the efforts of the 2nd Panzer Arm y to put Kaminskii, the rowdy Russian Nazi ‘ reformer* and war-lord in the Briansk forest, on the Vlasov committee so as to make it more representative — a short-lived attempt which was backed even by Kluge. 3 Karl Albrecht (Loew), a German who had gone to Russia in 1924 and managed to become a deputy commissar for forestry there, had returned to Berlin in the 1930s and then joined Goebbels* Propaganda Ministry. After directing a ‘ black * Russian-

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Meanwhile the growth of the Wlassow-Aktion permitted a stepping up of the Arm y’s propaganda campaign. Vlasov himself was given a headquarters (or, in effect, was placed under house arrest) in a swanky suburb of Berlin; a training camp for ROA propagandists was established at Dabendorff; the Russian-language newspapers — Zaria [Dawn] for the civilians, and Dobrovolets [Volunteer] for the ROA — were reorganized and expanded; in mid-March, for the first time, the German press carried Vlasov’s appeal — an event which provoked considerable stir abroad; and in April 1943 a ‘ conference of former officers and soldiers of the Red Army, now prisoners of war’ was held at Brest-Litovsk, with leading Vlasovite officers participating.1 On the whole the Germans seemed to be satisfied with the success of these efforts. While the bulk of prisoners remained hostile, incredulous, or passive, thousands joined the battalions that went under the collective name of R O A ; many more in the East suc­ cumbed to Vlasov’s charisma and began to wonder whether indeed a basic reversal of German tactics was not in the offing. Encouraged by the success of Vlasov’s first trip, Wehrmacht Propaganda arranged a new series of speeches and appearances, this time taking him to Riga, Pskov, and Gatchina in the north. His reception seemed to be equally favourable. As the diary of the economic inspectorate — in no sense a sympathetic faction — recorded in Pskov, Vlasov is an excellent speaker and makes the impression of an honest and very intelligent man who is sure of his goals. He spoke of his career, his attitude towards Bolshevism and Stalin, his impressions of Germany, and the necessity of collaboration. In 1812-13, the Russians had helped the Germans to be free; now the Germans would repay this debt of gratitude if they enabled the Russians to build their new house. Only by joined Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry. After directing a ‘ black’ Russianlanguage radio station, Albrecht, in the spring of 1943, sought support for a ‘ League for the Struggle for Social Justice’ , whose programme appealed for the salvation of Russia from Jews and Bolsheviks and urged honourable peace. If there was to be a Russian leader, Albrecht told friends, he had once occupied a higher position than Vlasov. (Interview G - 3 1 ; Rudolf Semmler, Goebbels [London : Westhouse, 1947], PP- 47-8.) After the war Albrecht sought to depict his position and war­ time role in an entirely different light. Both his testimony in defence of Berger and his ‘ memoirs’ must, however, be considered thoroughly unreliable. (Case X I, Engl, transcript, pp. 6249-306 ; Karl I. Albrecht, S ie aber werden die W elt zer­ stören [Munich : Herbert Neuner, 1954].) Albrecht did, however, intervene at different times for an improvement in the status of prisoners and Ostarbeiter and for the withdrawal of the Untermensch pamphlet. (See also N M T , xiii, 4 72 ; and Documents N O -20 89*, 2090*, 20 9 1*.) 1 See W . Wladimirow, Dokumente und M a te ria l des Komitees zu r Befreiung*der Völker Russlands (Berlin, 1944, ‘ N u r für den Dienstgebrauch’), pp. 58-67 ; Fischer, op . cit. p. 206 ; Peter Kleist, Zwischen H itler und S ta lin (Bonn : AthenäumVerlag, 1950), PP- 318 -26 .

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unselfish work could the new Russia win its place in the new Europe, equally far from Bolshevism and capitalism, and assure itself a new, secure, happy existence. The Russians listened to Vlasov with the greatest attention and showed their approval by active applause. . . . Vlasov’s appearance, as he himself remarked in jest, dispelled all rumours that he had died or even that he had never existed. It is entirely super­ fluous and inexpedient [the German recorder added] to worry whether this enterprise [i.e. Vlasov] comes too late, what its prospects are, and whether Vlasov has honest intentions.1 At the same time, his backers also appeared content with the effort directed to the Soviet side of the front. Even Goebbels commented that from a number of statements by Bolshevik prisoners I gather that General Vlasov’s appeal caused some discussion after all in the Soviet Army. The appeal will be even more effective if we get behind it more energetic­ ally. . . ? And General Hellmich, who nominally ‘ commanded ’ all the Osttruppen, wrote : The attempts to have the Russians addressed by Russians have had convincing success. For example, the use of pamphlets which are signed by the Russian Committee of General Vlasov and give the impression of a Russian group collaborating with Germany, have had the desired effect. According to reports by prisoners of war and orders we were able to listen to, the Soviet government has forbidden conversation on the topic of the ‘ Russian Army of Liberation ’ and has charged the organs of vigilance with special attention in regard to Vlasov’s pamphlets.3 After ample preparation there was initiated on April 20 ‘ Opera­ tion Silberstreif [Silver Lining]’ aimed at increasing the rate of voluntary desertion from the Red Army. For the first time, crude defection propaganda, anti-Semitism, and material inducements were subordinated to the combined appeal of the ‘ Russian Com­ mittee’ and the German army’s pledge to treat all deserters separately from and better than other prisoners of war. Basic Order No. 13, issued over Zeitzler’s signature, reproduced in leaflet form in Russian and dropped in large quantities over the Soviet lines, spelled out how money, valuables, insignia, and decorations were to be retained by the voluntary defectors, who were to receive good quarters and 1 W iln Nord, 4Kriegstagebuch’ , entry for April 30, 1943, W i/ID .1 3 3 * , C R S . See also Vlasov’s interview, ‘ Beseda s generalom Vlasovym ’ , N ovyi put’ (Riga), no. 10 (M ay 1943), p. 2. 2 The Goebbels Diaries, p. 330 (entry for April 15, 1943). 3 Hellmich, 4Vortragsnotiz betr. Osttruppen*, March 23, 1943, Document N G - 3534 *.

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rations, an assurance of free return home after the war, and the best medical attention. Such men were not to be considered prisoners; after one week they were to be given a choice of joining the ROA or one of the national ‘ liberation’ units, or of working as civilians in the German-held areas. In a substantial departure from earlier practice, this decree provided for the ‘ satisfaction of cultural demands’ of defectors, including literature, musical instruments, and showing of motion pictures.1 Desertions did rise from 2500 in May to 6500 in July. It is doubtful to what extent this increase was attributable to the leaflets ; various other factors, including the weather, encouraged defection. Certainly the statistical difference, interesting though it was as a test-case of psychological warfare, was not substantial enough to affect the course of battles. The German counter-offensive that was to have been launched almost simultaneously with Silberstreif was postponed and eventually fizzled out without marked results. Nevertheless, the first reports on the leaflet campaign in May 1943 acclaimed it as a success.12 At the same time, the prestige of the Vlasov movement in German eyes was boosted by the official Soviet reaction to it. After remaining silent for months, in the spring of 1943 Moscow apparently found the challenge too serious to ignore. While the population on the Soviet side was never told of Vlasov’s activities, the Red Arm y’s Main Political Administration began to ‘ reply’ by releases and articles in the army press and lectures to troops who had been exposed to the Vlasov leaflets or broadcasts. In good Soviet fashion Vlasov was now dubbed a Trotskyite, an associate of Tukhachevskii and a German and Japanese agent for years before the war. This counter­ propaganda was striking because it dealt entirely with Vlasov’s career and with German intentions and behaviour in Russia — 1 O K H /GenStdH /Gen.Q u. Abt. K r.-Verw ., ‘ Grundsätzlicher Befehl Nr. 1 3 ’ , April 20, 19 4 3*, H L . It also pertained to political officers in the Red Army. For the same text in Russian leaflet form, see Prikaz N r. 1 3 , R A B 690/IV/43, signed by Colonel Gehlen, April 2 1, 1943, when Zeitzler refused to sign its Russian text. See also Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 220-4 ; and interviews G -4, G -19 , G -32 . These sentiments were rapidly echoed by lower Echelons at the front. The following order of 2nd Panzer Division was typical : Out of the recognition that there is at present a greater willingness among the Russians to defect, considerably more intensive propaganda aimed at in­ ducing desertion is to be conducted. . . . T h e Russian soldier must be convinced that he is not deserting to his enemies but to his fellow-countrymen who are fighting against Communism for a free, independent Russia and are being treated correspondingly. 2.Pz.-D iv., I c , ‘ 24 6 /4 3’, M ay 4, 1 9 4 3 * . H L . ) 2 Interviews G -4, G - 3 1 . Actually, as will be seen, the Vlasov theme was initially avoided in Silberstreif.

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colonialism, atrocities, abuse. Moscow made no effort to counter Vlasov’s political or social programme.1 N o! The crisis came unexpectedly. On March 4, 1943, Himmler sent Bormann a memorandum : Please inform the Führer that, according to my information, the Wehrmacht has established and is giving publicity to a Russian committee and army of liberation. This would clearly contradict the Führer’s recent directives. I ask for information on the Führer’s decision.2 Having operated for months in the twilight of illegality and having attracted increased attention in Germany and abroad, the entire Vlasov enterprise was bound to incur the hostility of various elements ranging from Russian reactionaries and non-Russian separatists to Nazi extremists both in the SS and of the BormannKoch persuasion. Once attention was focused on Vlasov’s activity, hostile evidence against him and his associates was easily amassed within a few weeks. In particular, his speech at Gatchina aroused protests and indignation. Some day, he had declared, he hoped to be host to the German officers in liberated Leningrad. How could this Soviet prisoner, the extremists exclaimed furiously, brazenly dream of entertaining the conquering Germans, and of all places in Leningrad, which the Führer wanted razed from the face of the earth! In mid-April, there came a formal inquiry — and thinly veiled threats — from Keitel to Wedel about Vlasov’s political pro­ nouncements. If earlier non-Nazi remarks had been written off as clever propaganda or swallowed as a ‘ lesser evil’ , the attention of headquarters was now drawn to them, and WPr IV was obliged frantically to drum up high-level support for its protege. Thanks largely to Gehlen’s insistence that, for intelligence reasons, the Smolensk Committee was needed, the first storm was weathered.3 Its backers, however, had no illusions about the transitory nature of the delay : in mid-May OKW submitted the entire problem to Hitler. On May 19 the Führer decided the Rosenberg-Koch controversy in favour of the extremists. While Vlasov did not specifically figure 1 See Alexander Dallin and Ralph S. Mavrogordato, ‘ The Soviet Reaction to Vlasov’ , World Politics (Princeton), viii, no. 3 (April 1956), 307-22. 2 Himmler to Bormann, March 4, 1943, E A P 1 6 1 ^ 1 2 / 3 0 6 * , C R S . Just what directives he had in mind is unclear ; probably the delay in accepting the Rosenberg plan of February 8 was meant. 3 Interview G -4 ; Thorwald, op. cit. pp. 2 1 5 -2 2 (which may overly dramatize the crisis). On March 30, Bormann also informed the Foreign Office that the R S H A had ‘ proof’ of O M i plans to establish a Ukrainian national committee under German auspices. (Interview G -3 1.)

oh

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in it, by implication the decision dealt a body blow to the whole concept of political warfare.1 A quick attempt was made by Vlasov’s backers to rally support for their project. At the QuartermasterGeneral’s Office Wagner and Altenstadt displayed considerable activity on its behalf; Tresckow and Gersdorff even persuaded Kluge to endorse it in writing.12 Gehlen penned a long report seeking to show that, since Vlasov had been launched as a propaganda manoeuvre, the Reich could not shelve him without considerable loss of prestige, while the positive effect of using him was so great that it was possible, essential — and safe — to take the next step : a proclamation by Hitler on self-government in Russia under Vlasov’s leadership.3 Finally, an attempt was made through Bräutigam to enlist Rosenberg’s support. If the military could not count on Keitel to be their spokesman, perhaps the Ostminister would present the issue from a political point of view ? Rosenberg, however, was reluctant to stick his neck out again. Momentarily the Ostminister forgot his anti-Muscovite b ias; if the Vlasov movement was to be buried, so also would be his separatist committees. Informed that the issue was due to be decided by Hitler, he sent the OKW a peculiar plan for the use of Osttruppen in psychological warfare, calling for the assignment of Ostministerium plenipotentiaries to each army group ‘ to supervise and politically direct this activity’ . In the end, Rosenberg let himself be persuaded to notify Keitel of his willingness to see the Führer, together with Jodi, about Vlasov.4 1 See above, Chapter V I II.

2 OB Heeresgruppe Mitte [von Kluge] to Chef, O K H /G enStdH [Zeitzler], M ay 22, 1943, Document N O K W -3 5 2 1* . Kluge's letter, unusually determined for its frequently indecisive author, presented no new arguments but had as an enclosure a ‘ Plan for the Establishment of a National Committee in the Arm y Group Centre Rear A rea’, spelling out the proposed authority and composition of the committee. 3 Fremde Heere Ost [Gehlen], ‘ Entwicklung und Lage der militärischen Propaganda im Osten seit Herbst 1942 (Wlassow-Aktion)', June 1, 19 4 3*. Gehlen castigated the Rosenberg Ministry for its delays and lack of enthusiasm for Vlasov, who ‘ had proved thoroughly reliable . . . and knows that for him there is no way back to Stalin'. Enclosures to the memorandum, forwarded to Hitler's headquarters, included reports on Soviet and Western reactions to Vlasov. 4 He also sent Bormann a new project for the formation of committees for the various Soviet nationalities as well as a statement purporting to show Vlasov's assent to the future establishment of a sovereign Ukraine and Caucasus. (Rosen­ berg to O K W /W F St/Q II, M ay 29, 1943, O K W /690*, C R S ; Rosenberg to Bormann, September 7, 1944, Document N O -29 9 7* ; Thorwald, op. cit. p. 234 ; and Chavchavadze, op. cit. p. 65.) On the Vlasov statement, see below, p. 608. Thorwald's account, particularly of the Bräutigam-Wagner conference (actually Wagner did not attend at all) seems greatly misleading {op. cit. pp. 223-33). (Bräutigam, ‘ Vortragsnotiz für den Herrn Reichsminister', M ay 27, 1943, M /L 4 74 *, C R S ; interview G - 1 1 ; Bräutigam, letter to author, August 20, 1955.)

G.R.R.— 2 P

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Having relieved his conscience and mollified his insistent aides, Rosenberg departed for the Ukraine. In his absence, on June 8, 1943, at a conference with Keitel and Zeitzler, Hitler dealt the Wlassow-Aktion the final blow. One reason why Keitel had insisted on submitting the entire problem to the Führer was the prospect of joining the ROA proffered to defecting Soviet troops in one of the basic leaflets used in the Silber streif campaign. This in itself did not arouse the Führer’s ire. Divorcing psychological warfare from political intent, Hitler found nothing fatal in such appeals, even though they had exceeded the sanctioned limits on the use of Vlasov’s name. The real danger, he felt, lay in the political implications which not the Red Army, but some Germans, like Kluge, were reading into these tactics. It was essential to keep Vlasov propaganda precisely th at: not to permit it to blossom into a genuine political movement. Germany had no use for an indigenous collaborator leader in Russia : We must avoid the least encouragement of the opinion on our side that in this way [by boosting Vlasov] we might really find a compromise solution — something like the so-called free or national China [of Wang Ching-wei] in East Asia. As Keitel rephrased the Führer’s desires, We consider the signing of these propaganda leaflets by Vlasov, the National Committee, to be purely a propaganda device. Hitler’s decision restricted Vlasov to lending his name to German propaganda appeals addressed to the other side of the front lines. As for the occupied territory, T don’t need this General Vlasov at all in our rear areas’ . Curiously Hitler sensed what many of the general’s German promoters did n o t: the prospect that the ROA and its political leadership might some day break with the Nazis. ‘ We must not turn over [the Osttruppen]’, Hitler concluded, ‘ to a third party which gets them into its hands and then say s: “ Today we work with you and tomorrow we don’t ” . ’ 1 Once again Hitler was more consistent than his ‘ flexible’ sub­ ordinates. The irreconcilable nature of German-Russian relations, as Hitler saw them, was well revealed in his remark that, ‘ if [the collaborators] opposed the interests of their own people [by working with Germany], they would have no honour; if they tried to help their people, they would be dangerous ’. Given his goals and methods, 1 For the protocol of this important conference, see ‘ Besprechung des Führers’ , Document 1384-P S , Journal of Modern History, xxiii, no. 1 (March 19 51), 6 3-71 ; Engl, trans. in Fischer, op. cit. pp. 176-87. See also above, pp. 160-4 ; and Document N O -3 12 5 * .

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meaningful positive political co-operation of the Third Reich and a non-Stalinist Russia was impossible. The Fiihrer’s decision signalled a sudden suspension of the political warfare campaign. In one conference Hitler had destroyed the plans of three groups which had worked, though at cross­ purposes, on different variations of the political theme. He had administered a decisive setback to Rosenberg’s anti-Koch policy and his promotion of the non-Russian separatists, to the Army sponsors of bigger and better Osttruppen, and to the protectors of the political Vlasov movement. The matter was of sufficient importance for Hitler to discuss it in a special talk delivered to the commanders of the Army Groups on July 1, 1943. He was concerned lest the value of the indigenous auxiliaries promoted by the Army be overrated, and that, above all, no political inferences be drawn from their establishment. The German soldier was interested not in the programme of Russian or Ukrainian freedom, he argued, but rather in the prospect of settling in the East as a pioneer farmer after the war. The problem, as Hitler put it, was to find the way which, on the one hand, leads to the goal — the formation of battalions in the East — and, on the other hand, avoids their becoming armies and avoids political promises which we would have to redeem [einlösen] some day. . . . 1 Meanwhile Keitel drafted a formal letter to Rosenberg containing the Fiihrer’s verdict. The summary memorandum — pertaining not only to Vlasov but also to the non-Russian national committees — read : (1) The National Committees are not to be used for the recruitment of volunteers. (2) Vlasov is not to appear in the occupied territory. (3) For the continuation of the Vlasov propaganda operation, the Führer has not refused his consent only in so far as none of the points of the Vlasov programme is to be carried out without the Führer’s express sanction. No German agency must take seri­ ously the bait [Lockmittel] contained in the 13 Points of the Vlasov Programme.2 Once the decision was made, Hitler’s obedient followers rapidly fell in line. Jodi told Köstring with reference to Vlasov that ‘ only 1 [Hitler,] ‘ Auszug aus der Ansprache des Führers an die Heeresgruppen­ führer pp. am 1.7.43 abends’ , Document 739-P S, Vierteljahrshefte f ü r Z e it­ geschichte (Munich), ii (1954), 3 1 2 2 Memorandum, n.d., ‘ Brief Keitel ./. Rosenberg Juni 1943, Abschrift z.d .A .’ , A A 17*, C R S . See also Thorwald, op. cit. p. 240.

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the most stupid calves pick their own butchers’ : 1 the Russian *liberation movement ’ was too explosive a weapon to handle. Erich Koch zealously echoed the Führer’s attitude : the Vlasov army was bound to be nothing but ‘ cold coffee It was silly, he told a German journalist, to believe that 500,000 men in the ‘ Vlasov army’ might replace 500,000 German soldiers; in the end, they would only permit an enemy break-through which would take 500,000 German soldiers to repair. As for the political prospects, Koch repeated the Führer’s argument: Why the detour ? If one gave Vlasov’s army a flag and his soldiers honour, one would have to treat them as comrades with natural human and political rights, and the national Russian idea would break through. Nothing could be less desirable to us than such a development.2 The backers of the ‘ Russian liberation’ enterprise were them­ selves discouraged. Outsiders and convinced anti-Nazis like Ulrich von Hassell exclaimed, ‘ Too late ! ’ Grote concluded that nothing more could be done. Strikfeldt, who had become a close personal friend of Vlasov’s, despaired of the whole project. One by one, all proponents of ‘ political policy’ had failed, regardless of their means and intentions.3 The setback was bound to have its repercussions on Vlasov and his followers.4 Their attitude towards the Reich grew perceptibly cooler. Some of the collaborators were henceforth more receptive to Soviet offers to return to the Red Army or join the partisans. Others came to view the entire operation as merely a means of survival and a source of livelihood. A few held out in disbelief that ‘ Hitler could be so dense’ , trusting that the inevitable lightning of insight must soon strike the Führerhauptquartier. Still others concluded that it was too late and there was little choice between the two warring sides. 1 Denike, op . cit. p. 277. 2 Kausch, ‘Bericht über die R eise’, June 26, 1943, Docum ent Occ E4-11*, YIVO. In July Koch again spoke of the Vlasov enterprise at a conference with Rosenberg, Sauckel, and other officials. According to the minutes, ‘Koch demanded the dissolution of the so-called Vlasov liberation army and the transfer of Hiwis to labour. An unmistakable order of the Führer on this m atter m ust be obtained.’ (‘Sitzungsverm erk’, July 13, 1943, Document N O - i 830#.) 3 Interviews G-4, G-11, G-31 ; T he Von H assell D iaries (Garden City : Doubleday, 1947), p. 297. Almost tragi-comically, Ribbentrop, so often out of step, was at last persuaded by his Russland-Grem ium to intervene with H itler in favour of reviving the Vlasov cause. (See the m em orandum by Hilger, ‘Betr. W lassow’, June 29, I9 4 3 # .) Though thoroughly briefed in advance, the Foreign M inister emerged from his conference with Hitler once again convinced that the Führer was right. 4 A letter written by Vlasov in critique of Nazi policy, ostensibly in July 1943, may or may not be authentic. See xxx, ‘Euer Führer H itler muss sich jetzt entscheiden ’, W ik in g -R u f (Hameln), iii, no. 9 (September 1954), 15-16.

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Hitler’s decision of June 1943 ended one chapter of Ostpolitik. The same year, as has earlier been shown, ushered in, largely under the impact of defeats and shortages, a new phase of somewhat more conciliatory German tactics. Significantly, the change in tactics was limited to fields like propaganda, economy, and inter-personal relations; it did not yet percolate to the most sophisticated area, that of political warfare. At the same time, the summer of 1943 saw a shift of German attention from the occupied territory to the prisoners, labourers, and collaborators in the Reich. Given the continued defeats of the Army and the growth of the partisan movement in the East, the major concern of the framers of German Ostpolitik was henceforth the one remaining variable : the Osttruppen. Propaganda and Proclamation The period between the December 1942 conference of the military and civil government officials in Berlin and the Führer’s veto of positive political warfare in June 1943 was characterized by great expectations, in certain quarters, in connection with another project: a formal proclamation which the Führer (or, if need be, someone else) would address to the peoples of the Soviet Union. Informally discussed at the Berlin conference of December 1942, the idea recurred in Altenstadt’s ‘ Note on the Eastern Question’, submitted two weeks later. He wanted a ‘ declaration by the Führer guaranteeing equal rights as Europeans . . . to all Russians who join in the fight against Bolshevism’.1 However, after the fiasco of its pre-Christmas ‘ alliance’ with Rosenberg, the OKH was in no mood to assume overt initiative in political affairs. A proclamation by Hitler — a sheer propaganda move — would require no actual changes in the occupied areas, would cost the Reich nothing. More­ over, its backers naively hoped, the very fact that the German govern­ ment made an official pledge and that Berlin addressed the people directly, would have a salutary effect on morale in the East. Here was political warfare in its most watered-down form. It was easy for the authors of the plan to arouse the interest of Wehrmacht Propaganda and, through it, of Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry. Colonel Martin, the chief of WPr IV, was an admirer of Goebbels and served as a convenient transmission belt. By the end of January 1943 the stronger and more original personality of the Propaganda Minister — just then engaged in reassessing strategy — 1 O K H /G enStdH /G en.Q u./A bt.K r.-V erw ., ‘Aufzeichnung über die Ostfrage*, January 3, 1943, Docum ent NG-3415*.

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PT. I V

had seized the initiative in the matter of the Führer proclamation.1 The week following the surrender of Field-Marshal von Paulus at Stalingrad, Goebbels drafted an appeal for Hitler’s signature. It is interesting that he sought to coordinate his project in advance with two groups which, he assumed, were likely to back i t : logically enough not Himmler or Bormann, but Rosenberg and Zeitzler. Rosenberg’s response was ambivalent. On the one hand, he was sour because he considered such a proclamation to be the exclusive concern of his Ministry and he objected further to the joint appeal to Russians and non-Russians alike. On the other hand the stepping up of political propaganda coincided with his views at this particular moment and would have relieved the pressure which was being applied to him by his staff. Actually, he had incorporated a para­ graph on this subject in his letter to Hitler in mid-January, stressing that an authoritative name was needed to give punch to German appeals, but implying that he, rather than Hitler, would suffice as the signatory.12 Having received no answer, he discussed the plan at his conference with Hitler on February 8. According to Rosenberg’s subsequent letter to Keitel, Hitler turned down the idea of a personal proclama­ tion but left open the possibility of ‘ some sort of declaration by the Ostminister’ — probably not an entirely exact account.3 Moreover, Rosenberg had apparently tried to use the opportunity for one of his jealous jibes against Goebbels.4 A week later during a visit to Hitler’s headquarters at Vinnitsa, Goebbels again raised the question of the proclamation. He was forced to record that, although ‘ the Führer fully endorses my antiBolshevik propaganda’, . . . the Führer does not want to consider a proclamation for the East at this time. . . . He believes that Bolshevism is so hated and feared by the peoples of the East that the anti-Bolshevik tendency of our propaganda is quite sufficient. I try again to convince the Führer of the opposite. I believe, however, the real reason [for his opposition] is the fact that he 1 On Goebbels’ changing attitude on Russia, see above, pp. 176, 356. 2 Docum ent CX LIV-433*, CD JC. He, like Goebbels, enclosed the draft of such an appeal. 3 T h a t it may have been wishful thinking on Rosenberg’s part is also suggested by the fact that ten days later he felt compelled to protest Borm ann’s minutes, which apparently made no reference to such a proposal. Lammers, after checking back with the Führer, informed the Ostm inister that ‘at present the Führer rejects . . . any proclamation to the peoples of the E a st’. (Rosenberg to Goebbels, February 11, 1943, and Rosenberg to Lammers, February 13, 1943, Docum ent Occ E 18-19*, YIVO ; Lammers to Rosenberg, M arch 8, 1943, EAP 99/76*, CRS ; Rosenberg to Keitel, July 17, 1943*.) 4 T h e Goebbels D iaries, p. 261 (entry for M arch 2, 1943).

and reflections. Returning to the subject a generation later, I am awed by the avalanche of sources materials and secondary studies on the Second World War that have become available in the interim. Understand­ ably perhaps, the release of huge quantities of government records, combined with widespread interest in the subject, has produced a veritable industry in various countries and languages, nourished by painful nostalgia and an almost morbid fascination with a time when men and women seemed called to greatness yet so often found them­ selves overwhelmed by forces they did not understand. As I read what has appeared since the publication of this book’s first edition, I am embarrassed, surprised, and relieved by the fact that nothing in my treatment seems to require any fundamental revisions: embarrassed by the extent to which some of the themes struck here have been picked up by others and risk prematurely becoming conven­ tional wisdom; surprised because there is room indeed for more thorough monographic work on a number of topics which I could sketch but in broad and perhaps imprecise outline; and relieved in that I had not led my readers more seriously astray. Were I to write this book today, I would no doubt handle a number of topics differently. But it occurs to me that most of the differences would reflect changes in my own thinking or in the consciousness of our times, or else they would stem from a desire to avoid reiterating what has meanwhile become commonplace, rather than from a need to correct the evidence in any radical sense or to modify my major * These pages were prepared during a fellowship at the Kennan Institute, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D .C., and a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio (Italy). I am grateful to both institutions for the opportunity they provided to carry on my research and writing. I also wdth to express my thanks for their assistance with the materials reviewed for this purpose, to B. Clay Hall (Stanford University), Richard Kistler (Georgetown University), and Mrs Agnes F. Peterson, Curator of the West European Collections at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford, California. 1 Earlier I corrected two regrettable errors, by letter to the editor of the leading German journal in this field, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, IX (1961), 224. 679

68 o

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conclusions. Thus, I suspect, I would not now be so strongly impressed by the fact that behind the monolithic facade of totalitarianism elite politics and intrigues, bureaucratic conflicts and power struggles continued unabated. I might also today dwell at greater length on the ‘Final Solution’ of the Jewish question, not only because it sealed the fate of substantial numbers of Soviet citizens, but more generally because it was part of the context in which decisions relating to the ‘East’ were being made in Nazi Germany. Today I might be better able to sense—and convey—some of the pathetic ironies inherent in the drama, big and small: the illusory sense of achievement of the ‘decent’ German officer when he finally managed to secure permission to award an Iron Cross to a Russian; the righteous indignation of the ‘good’ German official protesting the abuse of Soviet Moslem prisoners of war who, because they were circumcized, had been mistaken for Jews; the outcries of those who would not have Ukrainians treated ‘like Negroes’ ; the dichotomy of public and private morality, with atrocities by day and chamber music by candle light at night; or what George Steiner has called the ambigu­ ity of ruin: Hitler’s insane lucidity that grasped, in 1 945, the outlines of the looming confrontation between Stalin and his Western allies across the body of the devastated Reich. . . . Perhaps I would also be more impressed by the mediocrity of the men who wrought the havoc1 if in the interim we had not had ample opportunity to observe with how little wisdom and statesmanship the affairs of other states at other times are also conducted. What made the experience of the Hitler era unique was not its mediocrity nor its banality. The question which I have asked myself, and which perhaps has been asked of me more often than any other, in regard to the subject of this book,2 is whether a different German policy would have made a difference in the outcome of the war in the East. I believe that the evidence, in this book and elsewhere, still supports the contention that, especially in the initial months of the German campaign, it would have made some difference. More generally, it can be shown that in a number of instances there was a distinct relationship, or ‘co-variance’, between German behaviour and popular response: not all Soviet attitudes were immutable. But whether, more funda­ mentally, the kind of people Hitler had assembled around him1 Goebbels himself remarked about the Nazi elite, toward the end of the war : ‘ A t best these are average men. Not one of them has the qualities of a mediocre politician, to say nothing of the caliber of a statesman. They have all remained the beer-cellar rowdies they always were . . . a gang of spiteful children, each of whom intrigues against all the rest. . . . ’ (Goebbels, cited in Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich [New York : Ace/Pantheon, 1970], p. 437.) 2 Raising such questions may indeed be the major merit of Gerald Reitlinger’ s The House Built on Sand (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, i960).

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self—with the outlook and values they stood for—were capable of a sufficiently different attitude and conduct toward the population in the Soviet areas they set out to occupy, is very doubtful. In any event, however, whether a policy fundamentally different in orienta­ tion, design, and implementation could have tipped the balance decisively against the Soviet regime in 1941-2, I personally am un­ certain about. It is most responsible to say that to this question we never can, never will know the answer. It must remain open and unresolved. *

*

*

Recent years have seen the appearance of interesting and controversial contributions to the discussion about the nature of fascism and its characteristics; about the role of Adolf Hitler within the Nazi system (as well as about the sources of his motivation) and, more broadly, the relationship of personality and politics.1 Fascinating as some of these debates are, it would go far beyond the problematics of the present volume to discuss them here. More specifically on the Second World War, both primary sources — including the extensive archives of captured records returned by the United States and the United Kingdom to the custody of the Federal Republic of Germany—and secondary studies now require systematic bibliographic tools of their own.12 Most recent monographs based on such sources—in particular, in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz—provide 1 The controversies over Hitler are well analyzed in three recent articles : Karl Dietrich Brecher, ‘ Probleme und Perspektiven der Hitler-Interpretation ’, in his Zeitgeschichtliche Kontroversen um Faschismus, Totalitarismus, Demokratie (Munich : Piper, 1976) ; Andreas Hillgruber, ‘ Tendenzen, Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Hitler-Forschung ’ , Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 226 (June 1978), 600-21 ; Klaus Hildebrand and Hans Mommsen, ‘ Nationalsozialismus oder Hitlerismus ? ’ in M. Bosch, ed., Persönlichkeit und Struktur in der Geschichte (Düsseldorf : Schwann, 1977). On the nature of German fascism, see, e.g., the several fine essays in Walter Laqueur, ed., Fascism: A Reader s Guide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 19 76 ) ; Charles S. Maier, ‘ Some Recent Studies of Fascism ’ , Journal of Modern History, September 1976; Ernst Nolte, ed., Theorien über den Faschismus (Cologne: Kiepenheuer, 1967); Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism (New York: Holt, Rine­ hart, 1966); Henry A. Turner, ed., Reappraisals of Fascism (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975). See also Renzo de Felice, Le interpretazioni del fascismo (Bari: Laterza, 1972). 2 See in particular the various bibliographies and annual listings of new publica­ tions issued by the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte / Weltkriegsbücherei in Stuttgart; American Historical Association, Commission for the Study of War Documents, Guides to German Records Microfilmed . . . (Washington, D .C .: National Archives and Records Service); Gwyn M . Bayliss, Bibliographie Guide to the Two World Wars: Annotated Survey of English Language Reference Materials (London: Bowker, 19 7 7 ) ; and A. G. S. Enser, A Subject Bibliography of the Second World War: Books in English 19 39 -74 (London: Andre Deutsch, 1977). See also Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Zur Konzeption einer Geschichte des zweiten Weltkrieges 19 39 -4 5 (Frankfurt: Bernard Sc Graefe, 1964). For bibliographies of Soviet sources, see below, n. 21.

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helpful information on their location and organization. Of recent German memoirs and biographies, some—such as those of Albert Speer and Reinhard Gehlen—offer relatively little of substantive importance to our topic.1 Others are of interest and significance, and they correct or fill in some details or provide colorful personal ac­ counts. This is particularly true of Otto Bräutigam’s published recol­ lections and of the forthcoming memoirs of Hans von Herwarth.2 On the German-Soviet war—and especially on its military aspects —books and articles too numerous to list have provided studies of varying scope and thoroughness.3 Considerable attention has been paid to the antecedents of the German attack—the background and circumstances of ‘Operation Barbarossa.’4 One aspect of German wartime policy in the ‘East’ which has been 1 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Macmillan, 1970); Reinhard Gehlen, The Service: Memoirs . . . (New York: World, 1972). See also Gen . Ernst Köstring . . . 7 9 2 7 - 4 7 , ed. by Hermann Teske (Frankfurt: Mittler, 1966). Wilfred von Oven, Finale Furioso (Tübingen: Grabert, 1974), is a republication of memoirs originally published in Buenos Aires in 1948-50. 2 Otto Bräutigam, So hat es sich zugetragen (Würzburg: Holzner, 1968); Hans von Herwarth (with S. Frederick Starr), Spurensuchen: Memoiren 1 4 3 0 - 1 4 4 3 (Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag, forthcoming); and Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich , which (though controversial in some of its assumptions) includes brilliant sketches of the Nazi leadership, including Alfred Rosenberg. On the latter, see also Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg (New York: Dodd, 1972); and Wilhelm J. Kaiser, Das Rechts- und Staatsdenken A lfred Rosenbergs (Cologne: WTasmund, 1964). See also the publication by Robert Gibbons of the memorandum issued by the Rosenberg staff in June 1941, ‘ Allgemeine Richtlinien für die politische und wirt­ schaftliche Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete ’ , which he identifies as having been written by Bräutigam and which he places in the context of policy differences between Rosenberg and Göring, in Vierteljahrshefte fü r Zeitgeschichte, X X V (1977), 252-61. 3 See especially John Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin s War With Germany , vol. I (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), dealing with the war as seen and conducted from the Soviet side; Alan Clark, Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 7947-45 (New York: Morrow', 1965); Albert Seaton, The Russo-German WTar (London: Barker, 19 71); Paul Carrell [pseud, of Paul Karl Schmidt], Hitler Moves East 14 4 1-4 3 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965) and Scorched Earth (London: Harrap, 1970); Earl Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin (Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1968); and the various studies of particular campaigns and operations, such as the Battle of Moscow , the Battle of Stalingrad, and the siege of Leningrad. See also Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims (Newr York: Norton, 1973) which probably attributes [as does Fast] an excessive role and consistency to Hitler personally; and Trumbull Higgins, Hitler and Russia . . . 19 3 7 -4 3 (New York: Macmillan, 1966). 4 Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie: Politik und Kriegsführung 1(440-1441 (Frankfurt: Bernard & Graefe, 1965); Barton Whaley, “ Barbarossa " (Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press, 1973), valuable but debatable in its analysis; Amnon Sella, ‘ “ Barbarossa ” : Surprise Attack and Communication ’ , Journal of Contemporary History , X I I I (1978), 555-83. See also Barry A. Leach, German Strategy Against Russia 1(434-41 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); Martin Van Creveld, H itlers Strategy 14 4 0 -14 4 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973); Robert Cecil, Hitler's Decision to Invade Russia 1 441 (London: Davis-Poynter, 1975); and Aleksandr M. Nekrich, jfcme 22, 1 441 [trans. from the Russian] (Columbia, S .C .; University of South Carolina Press, 1968). A collective volume dealing with German foreign policy and containing a number of significant contributions relevant to this study (notably by Karl Dietrich

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usefully restudied and rethought is the ‘commissar decree.’ 1 Another study that has attracted widespread attention deals with the fate of Soviet prisoners of war in German hands: here the evidence is far fuller than it was when this book was first written. It is a shocking story still, which will hardly give comfort to the defenders of the Wehrmacht.2 As for German institutions and policies, there is now a careful study (like the preceding book cited, originally a Heidelberg doctoral dissertation) of the Rosenberg apparatus, dealing in large measure with its prewar role: it provides a thorough and intelligent analysis of the bureaucratic-political and intellectual context of Rosenberg’s public activity.3 Another volume deals in detail with the German propaganda machine and its appeals to the Soviet army during the war (but may well exaggerate its impact).4 In the occupied areas, the German wartime administration in the Baltic states has been the subject of a much-needed systematic investi­ gation (which also deals with its interaction with popular attitudes there), by a Finnish scholar writing in Germ an;1 and a number of papers have dealt with local self-government and with personalities who emerged as defectors or collaborators on the German side.6 Brecher, Andreas llillgruber, and Axel Kuhn) is Manfred Funke, ed., H itle r , D eutschland und die M äch te: M aterialien zu r A ussenpolitik des D ritten Reiches (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1977). 1 Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ‘ Kommissarbefehl und Massenexekutionen sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener ’, in [Hans Buchheim et al., eds.] Anatom ie des S S -S t a a t e s (Olten: Walter, 1965), II, 163-97; and Helmut Krausnick, ‘ Kommissarbefehl . . . in neuer Sicht ’, V ierteljahrshefte f ü r Zeitgeschichte , XXV (1977), 682-738. My references to Generalplan Ost should be amplified and corrected by refer­ ring to Helmut Heiber, ‘ Der Generalplan Ost ,’ Vierteljahrshefte f ü r Zeitgeschichte , VI (1958), 281-325; and P rz eg la d Z a ch o dn i , 1961, no. 3, pp. 66-193. 2 Christian Streit, K ein e K am eraden . . . 1 9 4 1 - 19 4 5 (Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1978). A study far wider in scope and analysis than the topic suggests, jhis may be the best single monograph by which to gauge the advances in research and interpretation over the past twenty-five years. An earlier study of forced labor in Germany is Edward L. Homze, Foreign L a b o r in N a z i G erm any (Princeton University Press, 1967). 3 Reinhard Bollmus, Das A m t Rosenberg und seine G egner (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1970). 4 Ortwin Buchbender, D as tönende E r z : Deutsche P ropagan da gegen die R ote A rm ee im Zw eiten W eltkrieg (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1978). 5 Seppo Myllyniemi, D ie N euordnung der baltischen L ä n d e r , 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 4 (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1973). b Jaan Pennar, ‘ Selbstverwaltung in den während des 2. Weltkrieges besetzten Gebieten der Sowjetunion,’ Sow jetstudien (Munich), X II (1962), 50-78; Alexander Daliin, 'O dessa, 1941-1945: A Case Study of Soviet Territory Under Foreign R u le ’ (Santa Monica: RAND Corp., RM-1875, 1957); Alexander Dallin, ‘ The Kaminsky Brigade,’ in Alexander and Janet Rabinowitch, eds., R evolution and Po litics in Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), pp. 243-80; Alexander Dallin, ‘ Rodionov: A Case-Study of Wartime Redefection ’, A m erican S la v ic an d East European R e v ie w , February 1959; Alexander Dallin, ‘ Portrait of a Collaborator [Oktan],’ S u rv e y [London], no. 35 (1961), pp. 114-19; Alexander Dallin, ‘ From the Gallery of Wartime Disaffection: Lukin, ’ Russian R e v ie w , January 1962, pp. 75-80.

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The Orthodox Church under German occupation has also received careful scholarly attention.1 The non-Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union have been the subject of some new studies, memoirs, and controversies;2 so have the military contingents of former Soviet citizens on the German side.3 General Vlasov has been the focus of several books and articles by Germans who had worked closely with him and promoted his cause; they amplify (and correct some errors in) earlier accounts, my own included, but they can scarcely be expected to have the requis­ ite detachment for an objective judgment of the man, his cause, or his entourage.4 Finally, the story of forced repatriation of Soviet citizens to the U SSR at the end of the war—an ugly story indeed—has been carefully pieced together, with bitterness and bias but also solid and believable research.5 #

#

#

One body of materials that requires separate comment is the publications that have appeared in the Soviet Union and, especially 1 Harvey Fireside, Icon an d S w astika (Cambridge, M ass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), offers a scholarly social-science analysis of religious tensions and beliefs under both Soviet and German authorities. Wassilij Alexeev [Vasilii Alekseev] and Theofanis G. Stavrou, The G reat R e v iv a l: The Russian C hurch under G erm an Occupation (Minneapolis: Burgess, 1976), is an informed argument, rather more engage, stressing the resurgence of the church. 2 Patrik von zur Mühlen, Zwischen H aken kreuz und Soicjetstern (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1971), is an original contribution dealing with the Soviet ‘ Orientvölker ’ during the war, which (though debatable in its view of nationalist feelings among them) supplements my treatm ent of German wartime policy w ith some new’ material. Joachim Hoffmann, Deutsche und K a h n yk en 19 4 2 bis J g 45 (Freiburg: Rombach, 1974), informed but rather apologetic, is to some extent corrected by Aleksandr M. Nekrich, The Pun ished Peoples (New’ York: Norton, 1978), using some previously unknown sources on the nationalities ‘ liquidated *by Stalin during the w ar. 3 Jürgen Thorwald [pseud.], The Illu sio n : S o vie t S o ld iers in H itle r's Arm ies (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), is in substance an elaboration of his earlier Wen sie verderben wollen. . . . 4 See especially Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt, A gainst S ta lin and H it le r : M em oir o f the Russian Liberation M ovem ent 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 5 (New' York: John Day, 1973), based largely on the author’s diary and recollections; and Sven Steenberg [pseud.], W lassow: V erräter oder P a trio t? (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1968), using a considerable range of sources. See also Hans-Erich Volkmann, ‘ Das VlasovU nternehm en’, M ilitärgeschichtliche M itteilu n gen , 1972, no. 2, pp. 117-55; and a bibliography of the Vlasov movement, Michael Schatoff [Mikhail Shatov], comp., B ib lio g ra fia osvoboditeVnogo dvizh en iia narodov R ossii . . . (Newr York: All-Slavic Publishing House, 1961). See also Peter Gosztony, H itlers Frem de H eere (Düsseldorf: Econ. 1976); and Joachim Hoffmann, D ie Ostlegionen , 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 3 (Freiburg: Rombach, 1976), a thoroughly documented monograph. 5 Nikolai Tolstoy, The Secret B e tr a y a l (New’ York: Scribner, 1978) [Brit, ed., Victim s o f Y a lta (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977)]. See also Mark Elliott, ‘ T he United States and Forced Repatriation of Soviet Citizens, 1944-47 ’ P o litica l Scien ce Q u a rterly , 1973, pp. 253-75.

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in the 1970s, in the German Democratic Republic. History was and remains a highly political subject there, and it is not surprising that the events of the Second World War—so traumatic to Soviet and Ger­ man citizens alike, and so difficult to handle seriously in conformity with official orthodoxy—continue to be a matter of great sensitivity. Yet in the post-Stalin era a number of serious and, within certain limits (some topics remain taboo), scholarly dissertations, articles, and books have also been produced there—sometimes with blinders or at least with the requisite if ritual bows to orthodox doctrine. Perhaps understandably, it has been easier for Soviet and East German historians to handle bodies of documentary source material, specific episodes and dramatic events, or ideological abstractions unchallenged by conflicting empirical data, than broad interpretive schemata that must reconcile different bodies of evidence or, short of that, remain in limbo between fact and doctrine. The historian of the Second World War will need to consult Soviet sources—both primary and secondary—seriously, critically, and with a special understanding of their characteristics.1 They are of substantial value for the course of military operations, for instance.2 Nor will anyone be able to write a serious and balanced history of partisan warfare in the U SSR without extensive reference to the memoirs of Soviet participants. At the same time, balanced and unbiased studies of German occupation policies, conditions in the occupied areas, and popular attitudes there, are of course rare if not 1 For Western discussions of the Soviet treatm ent of the Second World War, see Matthew P. Gallagher, The S o viet H isto ry o f W orld W ar 11 (New York: Praeger, 1963); Graham Lyons, ed., The Russian Version o f the Seco nd W orld W ar (London: Cooper, 1976); Andreas Hillgruber and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ‘ Der zweite W elt­ krieg im Spiegel der sowjetkommunistischen Geschichtsschreibung (1945-1961) ’, in B. S. T e l’pukhovski, D ie soicjetische Geschichte des Grossen Vaterländischen K rie g e s (Frankfurt: Bernard & Graefe, 1961), pp. 13-94. A num ber of specialized studies do avoid the primitive and official character of the better known, popular works. Among the voluminous sources, see e.g., the following bibliographies: Akademiia nauk SSSR, Institut nauchnoi informatsii po obshchestvennym naukam [IN IO N ] et al., S S S R v gody veliko i otechestvennoi voin y . . . u k a za teV sovetskoi litera tu ry za 1941-1967 g.g. (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), 2 vol. ; Akademiia nauk SSSR, IN IO N , K 30 -letiiu velik o i p o b ed y: u kazatel ’ osnovnoi literatu ry 1 9 7 3 - 1 9 7 5 (M os­ cow: Nauka, 1975); [Eshakov, V., ed.] O voine, 0 tovarishchakh, o sebe: V elik a ia otechestvennaia voina v vospom inaniiakh . . . annotirovannyi u ka za tel ’ voennomem uarnoi literatu ry ( 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 7 5 g .g .) (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1977).

1 This includes both the massive collective works such as the twelve-volume history of the war, Istoriia vtoroi m irovoi voin y (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1973-76) and the earlier six-volume Istoriia V elikoi Otechestvennoi voiny Sovetskogo S o iu z a (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1962-65), as well as the memoirs of participants (such as Zhukov, Konev, Meretskov, Grechko, and Biriuzov) and monographs and secondary studies (e.g., D. M. Proektor, A gressiia i katastrofa [Moscow: Nauka, 1968]; and P r o v a l gitlerovskogo nastupleniia na M oskvu [M oscow : Nauka, 1966]). For a valuable selection of materials from the memoirs, see Seweryn Bialer, S ta lin a n d H is G enerals (New York: Pegasus, 1969).

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Postscript

nonexistent. Still, some sources and studies deserve to be known.1 Among the questions of German conduct and popular reaction, the one that has received particular attention is agrarian policy and the behavior of the kolkhoz peasants: it is obvious that Soviet efforts aim at minimizing, in retrospect, the effectiveness of any potential appeal of ‘reprivatization’ and at depicting German policy at its worst.2 Two general themes need to be singled out here: the relationship 1 On partisan warfare, Lev Nikolaevich Bychkov, Partisanskoe dvizhenie v gody V elikoi Otechestvennoi voin y 10 4 1-1(4 4 5 (Moscow: Mysl, ’ 1965), may be taken as representative of an entire genre of Soviet writing, much of it popular, with extensive vignettes of individual dedication, patriotism, and heroism. Somewhat selective, these books do use archival materials and secondary accounts, and especially in the 1962-65 period, were often marked by uncommon candor. See Bychkov, pp. 6-11, for a listing of some of the memoirs and collections of documents, which have now appeared for almost every part of the occupied areas. See also U k hodili v pokhod p a r tiz a n y : sbornik m aterialov nauchnoi konferentsii (Smolensk: Obkom KPSS, 1 973); and Voina v tylu v r a g a : o nekotorykh problem akh istorii sovetskogo partizanskogo dvizh en iia (Moscow: Politizdat, 1974). The Soviet sources need of course be

considered against the context of captured German records, partisan records seized by the Germans, and secondary Western studies, among which the most valuable is John A. Armstrong, ed., S o viet Partisans in W orld W ar I I (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964). Perhaps the most serious Soviet treatment of German occupation policy is E. A. Boltin, I. S. Kravchenko, and F. P. Shevchenko, 4 Politika nemetsko-fashistskikh okkupantov na zakhvachennoi territorii SSSR v 1941-1944 gg., ’ and G. F. Zastavenko, ‘ O roli germanskogo ministerstva vostochnykh okkupirovannykh oblastei,’ both in Institut Marksizma-leninizma pri TsK KPSS, Otdel istorii Velikoi Otech. Voiny, Nem etskofashistskii okknpatsionnyi rezhim (7947-/944 gg.) (Moscow: Politizdat«* 1965), based on papers presented at the 3rd International Conference on the History of the Resistance Movement (Karlovy Vary, 1963). See also Vsevolod Klokov, V senarodnaia b o rb a v tylu nem etsko-fasliistskikh okkupantov na U k rain e K )4 i-K )4 4 (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1978). On conditions in the German-occupied areas see e.g. [Minsk, Institut istorii partii pri T sK KPB] Prestupleniia nemetsko-fashistskikh okkupantov v Belorussii i()4T -K )44 (Minsk: Gosizdat BSSR, 1963); also the selection of documents (trans­ lated from the German volume, S S im E in satz ), S S v d e istv ii: dokumenty o prestup len iiakh S S (2d rev. ed., Moscow: Progress, 1968); and Akademiia nauk SSSR and Institut Marksizma-leninizma pri TsK KPSS, V toraia m irovaia voina . . . Obshchie problem y (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), based on a conference held to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the end of the war. A num ber of these volumes cite documentary materials not otherwise available, but even at their best they remain unmistakably tendencious. On forced labor and prisoners of war in Germany, especially their resistance activities and German retribution, see e.g. E. A. Brodski, ‘ Osvoboditel’naia bor’ba sovetskikh liudei v fashistskoi Germanii (1943-1945 gody), ’ Voprosy istorii , 1957, no. 3, pp. 85-99. 2 N. I. Sinitsyna and V. R. Tom in, ‘Proval agrarnoi politiki gitlerovtsev na okkupirovannoi territorii SSSR (1941-1944 gg.), ’ Voprosy istorii , 1965, no. 6, pp. 32-44; Iurii V. Arutiunian, Sovetskoe kresVianstvo v go dy V elikoi Otechestvennoi vo in y (2d. ed., Moscow’: Nauka, 1970), a fine study; Viktor M. Gridnev, B o r b a kresVianstva okkupirovannykh oblastei R S F S R p rotiv nemetsko-fashistskoi okkupat sionnoi p o litik i i