The territory captured by the Nazis. German occupation of the territory of the USSR

, Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Union Republics, as well as thirteen territories and regions of the RSFSR were under the control of the Third Reich; the territories of the Moldavian SSR and some regions of the south of the Ukrainian SSR - under the control of Romania (Transnistria); part of the Karelo-Finnish SSR was occupied by Finnish troops (see: Karelo-Finnish SSR during the Great Patriotic War).

Germany's goals in the East[ | ]

As the German historian Dr. Wolfrem Werte noted in 1999, “the Third Reich’s war against the Soviet Union was from the very beginning aimed at seizing territory up to the Urals, exploiting the natural resources of the USSR and long-term subordination of Russia to German rule. All Jews faced a direct threat of systematic physical extermination , gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, communists and other “undesirable” elements.[ ]

The military-political and ideological goals of the “war in the East” are evidenced, in particular, by the following documents:

The chief of staff of the operational leadership of the OKW, after appropriate corrections, returned the draft document “Instructions regarding the special problems of Directive No. 21 (variant of the Barbarossa plan)” presented to him on December 18, 1940 by the National Defense department, making a note that this draft could be reported to the Fuhrer after revision in accordance with the following provisions:

“The upcoming war will be not only an armed struggle, but also at the same time a struggle between two worldviews. To win this war in conditions where the enemy has a huge territory, it is not enough to defeat his armed forces, this territory should be divided into several states, headed by their own governments, with which we could conclude peace treaties.

The creation of such governments requires great political skill and the development of well-thought-out general principles.

Every large-scale revolution brings to life phenomena that cannot simply be cast aside. It is no longer possible to eradicate socialist ideas in today's Russia. These ideas can serve as an internal political basis for the creation of new states and governments. The Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia, which represents the oppressor of the people, must be removed from the scene. The former bourgeois-aristocratic intelligentsia, if it still exists, primarily among emigrants, should also not be allowed to come to power. It will not be accepted by the Russian people and, moreover, it is hostile towards the German nation. This is especially noticeable in the former Baltic states. Moreover, we must under no circumstances allow the Bolshevik state to be replaced by a nationalist Russia, which ultimately (as history shows) will again oppose Germany.

Our task is to create these socialist states dependent on us as quickly as possible with the least amount of military effort.

This task is so difficult that the army alone cannot solve it.”

30.3.1941 ... 11.00. Big meeting with the Fuhrer. Almost 2.5 hour speech...

The struggle of two ideologies... The huge danger of communism for the future. We must proceed from the principle of soldierly camaraderie. The communist has never been and will never be our comrade. We are talking about a fight of destruction. If we don't look at it this way, then even though we defeat the enemy, in 30 years the communist danger will arise again. We are not waging war in order to mothball our enemy.

Future political map of Russia: Northern Russia belongs to Finland, protectorates in the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus.

The fight against Russia: the destruction of the Bolshevik commissars and communist intelligentsia. The new states must be socialist, but without their own intelligentsia. A new intelligentsia should not be allowed to form. Here only the primitive socialist intelligentsia will be sufficient. The fight must be waged against the poison of demoralization. This is far from a military judicial issue. Commanders of units and units are required to know the goals of the war. They must lead in the struggle..., keep the troops firmly in their hands. The commander must give his orders taking into account the mood of the troops.

The war will be very different from the war in the West. In the East, cruelty is a blessing for the future. Commanders must make sacrifices and overcome their hesitations...

The economic goals are formulated in the directive of Reichsmarschall Goering (written no later than June 16, 1941):

I. According to the orders of the Fuhrer, all measures must be taken for the immediate and fullest possible use of the occupied areas in the interests of Germany. All activities that could interfere with the achievement of this goal should be postponed or abandoned altogether.

II. The use of areas subject to occupation should be carried out primarily in the food and oil sectors of the economy. Getting as much food and oil as possible for Germany is the main economic goal of the campaign. Along with this, German industry must be provided with other raw materials from the occupied areas, as far as technically possible and taking into account the preservation of industry in these areas. As regards the type and volume of industrial production of the occupied areas that must be preserved, restored or reorganized, this must also be determined very first in accordance with the requirements that the use of agriculture and the oil industry poses for the German war economy.

This clearly expresses the guidelines for managing the economy in the occupied areas. This applies to both main goals and individual tasks that help achieve them. In addition, this also suggests that tasks that are not consistent with the main goal or interfere with maintaining it should be abandoned, even if their implementation in certain cases seems desirable. The point of view that the occupied regions should be put in order as soon as possible and their economy restored is completely inappropriate. On the contrary, the attitude towards individual parts of the country should be differentiated. Economic development and maintenance of order should be carried out only in those areas where we can extract significant reserves of agricultural products and oil. And in other parts of the country that cannot feed themselves, that is, in Central and Northern Russia, economic activity should be limited to the use of discovered reserves.

Reichskommissariats[ | ]

Ostland and Muscovy[ | ]

Baltics[ | ]

Caucasus [ | ]

In the Caucasus it was planned to create an autonomous region (Reichskommissariat) within the Third Reich. The capital is Tbilisi (proposed). The territory would cover the entire Soviet Caucasus from Turkey and Iran to the Don and Volga. It was planned to create national entities within the Reichskommissariat.

Preparation for war and the initial period of hostilities[ | ]

As Russian historian Gennady Bordyugov writes, “from the very beginning, the political and military leadership of Germany... demanded that soldiers be prepared for unlawful, essentially criminal, actions. Hitler’s ideas on this matter were a consistent development of the political principles that he set out in his books written back in the 1920s... As mentioned above, on March 30, 1941, at a secret meeting, Hitler, speaking to 250 generals whose troops were to participate in Operation Barbarossa, called Bolshevism a manifestation of " social crime“. He stated that " it's about a fight of destruction“».

According to the order of the head of the Wehrmacht High Command, Field Marshal Keitel, dated May 13, 1941, “On military jurisdiction in the Barbarossa area and on special powers of troops,” signed by him on the basis of Hitler’s orders, a regime of unlimited terror was actually declared on the territory of the USSR occupied by German troops . The order contained a clause that actually exempted the occupiers from liability for crimes against the civilian population: “ Prosecution of acts committed by members of the armed forces and service personnel against hostile civilians is not mandatory even where those acts also constitute a war crime or misdemeanor».

Gennady Bordyugov also points to the existence of other documentary evidence of the attitude of German military leaders towards the civilian population caught in the combat zone - for example, the commander of the 6th Army von Reichenau demands (July 10, 1941) to shoot “ soldiers in civilian clothes, easily recognizable by their short haircut", And " civilians whose manners and behavior appear to be hostile", General G. Hot (November 1941) - " immediately and ruthlessly stop every step of active or passive resistance", commander of the 254th division, Lieutenant General von Weschnitta (December 2, 1941) - " shoot without warning any civilian of any age or gender who approaches the front line" And " immediately shoot anyone suspected of spying».

Administration of occupied territories[ | ]

In the occupied territory of the USSR, there were cases of extermination of Soviet prisoners of war who fell into the hands of the advancing German troops.

Sovinformburo also reported on German crimes: [ ]

On September 23, 1942, the Nuremberg company of the 3rd battalion of the 15th police regiment under the command of Oberleutnant Glucks, which included German police from the city of Nuremberg, together with nationalists from the auxiliary police (policemen from Ratnoye, Kamenya-Kashirskoye, Belarusian cities Malority, Dyvyna) surrounded the village of Kortelisy. Its inhabitants were herded into the center and shot with machine guns. The village was destroyed. In Kortelis, the following is engraved on memorial plaques: “Here and in 20 nearby farmsteads, on September 23, 1942, 2,875 people died, including 1,620 children, and 715 farmsteads were burned.”

In the second half of March, after the secondary occupation of Kharkov by German troops, a team of executioners called “EK-5” arrived there. In the very first days, this team arrested 2,500 Soviet citizens and shot them in the village of Kuryazh (12 kilometers from Kharkov). The same team shot about 3,000 Soviet citizens in a forest park, among whom were many women and children. In August of this year, a few days before their flight from Kharkov, the Nazis took 500 residents to the village of Kuryazh and brutally killed them.

The Nazi scoundrels brutally kill disabled and sick Soviet citizens who were forcibly taken away by German troops during their retreat. In the village of Gurki, Vitebsk region, on November 25, the Germans poisoned two trains with soup, in which there were many sick Soviet citizens. In Minsk, in just two days, November 18 and 19, fascist monsters poisoned about 1,500 disabled elderly people, women and children. The corpses of the poisoned were burned.

Below is an act about the monstrous atrocities of the Nazi scoundrels in the villages of Leninsky, Dyaki and Vdovin Khutor, Kirovograd region: “On October 19, 1943, the Germans burned to the ground the settlements of Vdovin Khutor, Dyaki and Leninsky and exterminated almost all civilians. The fire destroyed 276 houses with all outbuildings and property of collective farmers. The Nazis shot, burned and strangled 1,070 women, old people and children.

New reports have been received about the brutal reprisals of Nazi scoundrels against peaceful Soviet citizens. At the Lesnaya station, Baranovichi region, many thousands of residents accumulated, whom the Germans, during the retreat, forcibly drove away from their native villages and cities to hard labor in Germany. At the end of November, after a cursory medical examination, the Nazis selected over 900 disabled and sick people and shot them.

In the mountains Borisov, Minsk region, accumulated a large number of civilians, driven away by the Germans from different areas. In mid-November, German authorities began sorting evacuees. The Nazis sent able-bodied men and women to hard labor in Germany. All disabled people, including children, are shot by German cannibals. Only in two days - November 15 and 16 in the mountains. In Borisov, fascist German monsters killed 840 Soviet citizens, most of them old people, children and the sick.

Residents of the village of Lykovo, Oryol region, drew up an act about the monstrous atrocities of Hitler’s scoundrels. The act says that the Germans, retreating from Lykov, set fire to the village from all ends. All 100 residential houses of collective farmers, outbuildings and outbuildings burned down. Residents tried to hide from the fire in basements, cellars and pits. Then the Germans began throwing grenades at them, and everyone who tried to escape was shot with machine guns and machine guns. As a result of this savage massacre by German bandits, out of 730 civilian village residents, only 50 people remained alive. (680)

The Nazi scoundrels destroyed to the ground the colony and the village of Malin, Ostrozhetsky district, Rivne region. The commission that investigated the monstrous atrocities of the Nazis drew up an act which states: “Early in the morning, the Germans cordoned off the colony and the village of Malin and drove the entire population to the square. The Nazis then locked the men in the school and church, and the women and children in barns. The fascist murderers lined the wooden school buildings, churches and barns with straw, doused them with kerosene and set them on fire. German sentries stood guard at the doors and windows. They shot with machine guns everyone who tried to get out of the fire and save themselves. On that day, Hitler's monsters killed and burned 603 Soviet citizens, of which 205 were young children. The fascist bandits also burned 355 residential buildings and outbuildings.”

During the retreat of the 17th Army from Crimea to Sevastopol on April 11, 1944, one of the detachments of Crimean partisans captured the city of Old Crimea. Thus, the road to the units of the 98th Infantry Division from the 5th Army Corps of the 17th Army retreating from Kerch was cut off. In the evening of the same day, one of the regiments of this division, reinforced with tanks and assault guns, approached the city. During the night battle, the Germans managed to capture one of the city blocks (Severnaya, Polina Osipenko, Sulu-Darya streets), which was in their hands for 12 hours. During this time, German infantry destroyed its entire population - 584 people. Since the conditions of the battle did not allow, as was usually done, to herd the doomed to one place, the German infantrymen methodically combed house after house, shooting everyone who caught their eye, regardless of gender and age.

When the Nazis began sending masses of Soviet citizens to hard labor in Germany, many residents of the mountains. Kerch went into quarries. The Germans cordoned off the quarries with barbed wire and posted a notice: “Whoever is seen near the caves will be shot on the spot.” In many places near the exits from the caves, the Germans laid mines. Before retreating from the village of Adzhim-Ushkai, the fascist cannibals drove 500 residents into the catacomb and shot them.

Below is an act about the atrocities of the Nazi scoundrels in the village of the Brick Factory and the village of Kuyalnik, Odessa region: “Retreating under the blows of the Red Army, the Nazis took out their anger on civilians. On April 9, German soldiers and officers drove women, children and old people into a clay quarry and committed brutal reprisals against them. Fascist executioners shot innocent civilian Soviet people with machine guns and pistols. German monsters killed up to 400 residents during this day. More than 30 young children died at the hands of fascist executioners.”

Announcement of the commandant of the mountains. Kyiv, Major General Eberhard about the execution of mountain residents. Kiev November 22, 1941 “In Kiev, means of communication (telephone, telegraph, cable) were maliciously damaged. Since the pests could not be tolerated any longer, 400 men were shot in the city, which should serve as a warning to the population. I demand again about any suspicious cases, immediately report to the German troops or the German police, so that the criminals are punished to the appropriate extent. Eberhard, Major General and Commandant of the city"

From the very first days of the occupation of the town of Chartoriysk, Volyn region, the Germans began to carry out widespread robberies and massacres. The executions of civilian Soviet citizens took place in a ravine behind the cemetery, near the Kotelets tract. The Germans dealt especially harshly with the intelligentsia. They shot the teacher Gordiy Sventa along with his fourteen-year-old son, brutally tortured and killed the teacher Grigory Cheb. At the end of January of this year, a detachment of SS men arrived in the town and rounded up the residents to build defensive structures. When the work was completed, the Nazi monsters shot over 400 civilian Soviet citizens working on the construction of the fortifications.

Wild atrocities were committed by German fascist scoundrels in the villages of Bolshaya Obukhovka and Bakumovka, Mirgorod district, Poltava region. In just two days, Hitler’s executioners shot 370 Soviet citizens in Bolshaya Obukhovka. The Germans went from house to house and killed everyone they found. Fascist bandits burned more than 150 residential buildings.

The retreating German monsters committed unheard-of atrocities against the population of the villages of Sanniki, Malinovka and Reshetovka, Kalinin region. All three villages were burned to the ground. Residents of the villages in the amount of 301 people - women, old people and children - were shot and burned by the Germans. Our advanced units that occupied these villages were able to extract only 10 seriously wounded women and children from the pile of corpses. The rest died.

So, in October last year, Hitler’s monsters shot 300 civilians in Simferopol on a state farm. The fascist executioners took the corpses of those executed to the field, put them in piles, doused them with gasoline and burned them.

Retreating under the pressure of our units, the Germans shot and tortured more than 300 civilians in the village of Bolshaya Gomolsha. In a neighboring village, the Nazis burned huts, took all property and food from collective farmers and shot 25 old people and teenagers.

Hitler's cannibals exterminate civilians in occupied Soviet cities and villages. In the city of Taganrog, many hundreds of people have been tortured and shot just recently. On January 18, one German officer and 5 soldiers were killed in the city by unknown persons. In this regard, on January 19, 300 innocent old men, women and children were shot in the courtyard of plant No. 31. On January 29, 75 people were shot on the outskirts of the city. On January 31, 35 women and children were shot, on February 4, 153 people were shot for damaging telegraph communications, and on February 8 and 9, 250 people were shot.

In the Porkhov region, residents of the village of Krasukha, burned by the Nazis, will be remembered. November 27 marks 65 years since the tragic moment when, in 1943, the fascist occupiers herded all the residents of the village of Krasukha into a barn, doused them with gasoline and burned them. 280 children, women, and old people died in fire and agony. The reason for the massacre was that in November 1943, between Porkhov and Ostrov, near the village, a car of the fascist command was destroyed by an explosion.

The Nazi scoundrels are exterminating the civilian population of the areas of the Smolensk region they occupied. Recently, a punitive detachment of SS men carried out a brutal massacre of the residents of the village of Leninitsa. The Nazis burned 20 residential buildings in this village, tortured and shot 270 women, children and old people.

In December 1942, the Nazis completely destroyed the villages of Mochalishche, where 267 people died in a fire, and Rakitnoye, where 197 residents were killed and 77 were burned alive.

Residents of the village of Ozeryany, Chernigov region, spoke about the monstrous atrocities of the Nazi scoundrels: “During the occupation, the Nazis brutally tortured hundreds of civilians. On March 19, 1943, German monsters burned 93 farms with all outbuildings. The fire killed 267 residents, whom the Germans did not let out of their houses.

Matrenovka is the sister of such villages as Khatyn, Lidice, Oradour, whose fate became one of the saddest pages of World War II. The tragedy in Matrenovka occurred on May 20, 1943: German soldiers entered the village to punish the rebellious Matrenovka members who were helping the partisans. Residents tried to escape, but they were immediately intercepted and pushed into the ruins of the surviving bathhouse. When the building was filled, the Nazis locked the doors, doused the walls with gasoline and set them on fire. On that day, the lives of 253 Matrenovites were cut short: children, women, and old people.

Residents of the city of Belaya Tserkov, Kyiv region, drew up an act on the atrocities of the Nazi occupiers. The act states: “... In January 1944, the Gestapo forced 250 people into one of the houses on the outskirts of the city. The fascist scoundrels doused the house with gasoline and burned alive the Soviet people locked there...”

In the village of Serniki, the Nazis gathered about 250 local residents and forced them to dig a hole. When the hole was dug, the fascist monsters opened fire with machine guns and shot all the gathered residents.

A message has been received about new monstrous atrocities of the Nazi scoundrels. The Nazis robbed the Makaryevsky home for disabled women (Leningrad region), took away all the food from defenseless women and thereby doomed them to starvation. In a short period of time, 60 people died of hunger. Soon the Gestapo drove the 244 surviving women into the field and shot them with machine guns.

On the night of March 8, at the Shidlovskaya station, Nazi bandits herded the entire male population of the village of Znamenka into carriages and opened fire on the carriages with machine guns. Of the 250 people, only 40 survived. (210)

It was easy to force people to work under such terrible conditions. On the walls of the commandant's offices hung threatening warnings: “Whoever refuses to work is considered an enemy of the German state and will be shot.” These were no jokes: when in the village of Mizikheyeva Polyana near Krasnodar people refused to go out to logging, 207 people were immediately shot.

When the Germans retreated from the village of Drachevo, Gzhatsky district, in March 1943, the assistant head of the German field gendarmerie, Lieutenant Bos, drove 200 residents from the villages of Drachevo, Zlobino, Astakhovo, Mishino into the house of the collective farmer Chistyakova, closed the doors and set fire to the house, in which all 200 people burned.

In the village of Basmanovo, Smolensk region, the Germans “drove into the field more than 200 schoolchildren who had arrived in the village to harvest the harvest, surrounded them and shot them. They took a large group of schoolgirls to their rear “for the gentlemen officers”

Russia met the Baltic “truth teller” Ruta Pazdere, head of the Latvian state commission for calculating losses from the so-called Soviet occupation. This is the commission that spent 11 years calculating how much money Russia should reimburse it for the years of Latvia’s stay in the USSR. In mid-April, this commission announced its own calculations. It turns out that Russia allegedly owes Latvia 185 billion euros. For what? According to Ruta Pazdere, the USSR simply monstrously slowed down the development of the Latvian economy.

Surprisingly, after just a couple of days, the Latvian commission changed its mind. And she doubled the amount she would like to receive from Russia as compensation for losses! Instead of 185 billion, a new amount was announced - 300 billion euros! It turns out that Latvians also forgot to calculate the damage to the environment and demographics caused by Russia. What happened next was even funnier. Ruta Pazdere accused Moscow of the fact that modern citizens of a free country have small pensions, and young people leave their homeland and go to the West.

The Baltic states have been making similar accusations in recent years. Politicians and journalists call Russians aggressors who, during the USSR, occupied and plundered all neighboring countries.

But is there at least a few percent truth in this?

The Second World War and the German occupation caused damage to this country in an astronomical amount - 20 billion Soviet rubles. Jelgava, Daugavpils, Rezekne, Balvi, Valmiera were in ruins. More than five hundred bridges and almost 2 thousand km of railway tracks were destroyed! The lion's share of industry!

But within 10 years, the production of goods here increased 6 times! And mechanical engineering production increased 30 times during this time. This is what occupation looks like!

The whole country loved the Soviet RAF minibuses. Soft and comfortable, they carried doctors, police, and were minibuses.

The Soviet Union was very fond of these machines, especially since the entire union state worked on their design. Many minibus units were created on the basis of the Volga and Moskvich, and the now so hated USSR invested billions in the construction of the plant itself. A whole generation of workers grew up at the plant, receiving decent wages and housing. And now this is what happened to this plant, after the so-called liberation from occupation.

The site of the famous Riga automobile factory is now nothing but ruins. The same thing happened with the rest of the industry. Experts assure that in the USSR Latvia transferred four times more money per year for development than, for example, to the Voronezh region.

Another enterprise built by the occupiers, as we are now called, is Latvijas Gaze. By the way, it still brings huge profits to Latvia.

In the Incukalns area, fifty kilometers from Riga, at a depth of 700 meters, there is a huge gas storage facility, opened, of course, under the USSR. In the summer, Russian gas workers pump gas here for storage, and in the winter, on the contrary, Russia takes gas to heat the houses of St. Petersburg, leaving Latvia with good profits.

There is another enterprise built by “robbers” and “aggressors”.

Ventspils, a port city on the Baltic Sea. The settlement itself was founded by the Teutons, but the Russian occupiers turned it into an industrial city, investing millions in its construction since the times of Tsarist Russia.

It was the Russians who connected this port by rail with Moscow and Rybinsk. In Soviet times, Ventspils was built into a global system of oil pipelines with Russian regions. Thus, the Baltic city turned into a major oil products transshipment center. The USSR built one of the largest transshipment terminals for chemicals in the port of Ventspils: ammonia, potassium salts. Since the 60s, this city has turned into the largest transit center, which until recently brought huge profits to Latvia. However, Russia is gradually beginning to abandon the services of the port and the matter is far from falling oil prices. After all, the basis of Latvia’s policy today is fierce hatred towards Russia.

And the Russian “occupiers” built the famous VEF plant in Latvia, the leading electrical engineering enterprise in the Soviet Union. It was here that the best and most expensive electronic equipment in the Soviet country was once produced. Yes, this is him today.

The Russian aggressors also built the Riga Carriage Works here. It was founded - just imagine - back in the 19th century. The very first car in the Russian Empire, the Russobalt, was created here, which Nicholas II himself drove. In the 80s, when the Baltic states had already begun to overtake the whole of Europe in mechanical engineering, the plant’s workshops produced the only high-speed electric train in the USSR, the ER200.

After joining the EU, it turned out that all products do not meet European standards. Production was closed. This is approximately how, according to the logic of the Latvian authorities, the Soviet occupation of this country took place, for which Russia, the legal successor of the Soviet Union, now owes the Baltic 300 billion.

The idea of ​​Soviet occupation in the Baltic states has been promoted for a long time and persistently.

For example, through Latvia. It was opened back in '93. The employees of this establishment claim that the USSR was the occupier of Latvia from 1940 to 1991, and the inhabitants of this country literally languished in communist slavery.

This is a history article from the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Every line contains two words, annexation and occupation.

Such historians, flaunting their hatred of everything Russian and Soviet, forget to mention that it was the Soviet Union after the war that carried out unprecedented industrialization in the then Soviet republic. After the collapse of the USSR, Latvian industry very quickly fell into decline; all famous Soviet factories, such as FED and RAF, closed. It's hard to believe, but over the past 20 years, the population of Latvia has decreased by almost a quarter! The same thing happens in Lithuania and Estonia. The economies of the countries have fallen into decline, young people are leaving en masse to work in the European Union.

Look, this caricature of guest workers from the Baltic states was recently published by the British newspaper The Independent.

This is an advertisement for the popular trading company Tesco. It depicts a package with preserved human bodies and the inscriptions “a pack of cheap labor” and “every Lithuanian will benefit.” This is how Europe treats the Balts, who were so eager to join the European Union.

Many Balts have a prestigious education, and when they move to Europe, they hope to be in demand there. But Baltic teachers, doctors and engineers in Europe turn out to be of no use to anyone. After all, their diplomas, as well as work experience in their homeland, are simply not valued there. Then former specialists have to take on any job. Moreover, most often they work on harvesting. That is, they simply pick strawberries.

In general, Moscow, of course, is an enemy, an aggressor and an occupier, but at the same time, you can do business with us together. True, for the last couple of years, Baltic ministers and economists have been sounding the alarm! The transit of goods, from which very important money went to the budget, is declining. The Baltic authorities are in panic. It turns out that independent countries cannot do without Russian trains. Just recently, the board of the Estonian Railways said that the amount of cargo from Russia has been reduced to a widow, which means that thousands of workers will soon be laid off.

At different times, wars were won not only by infantrymen, cavalry, tanks, guns and airplanes, but also by at least one more element, which can be called information processing of the population. The Hitler machine, which in June 1941 moved towards the Soviet Union, having previously managed to crush almost all of Europe, tried to effectively use propaganda levers in order to sow both stable hostility towards Soviet power among the population remaining in the occupied territories, and to attract this population to actively cooperate with the occupying forces.

Historians recognize that in the first months of the Great Patriotic War, Nazi propaganda brought tangible results to the Third Reich in the occupied territories of the USSR. Joseph Goebbels can be considered the propaganda “brain” of the entire Third Reich, who managed to sharpen the sting of the information war to the utmost sharpness over the years of his work as Reich Minister of Education and Propaganda.

Even from several of his theses it is clear what methods one of Hitler’s closest associates used to achieve his goals:

Propaganda must, especially during war, abandon the ideas of humanism and aesthetics, no matter how highly we value them, since in the struggle of a people we are talking about nothing else but its existence.

Another thesis of Goebbels:

Propaganda must be limited to the minimum, but at the same time repeated constantly. Persistence is an important prerequisite for her success.

It was these main theses that the Nazi propaganda machine used to develop success on the territory of the USSR at the first stage of the war. Realizing that one of the important components of the success of the German army on the territory of the Soviet Union is the loyal attitude of the local population towards it, the main ideologists of information processing of Soviet citizens decided to play the main trump card. This trump card was simple and, at the same time, extremely effective for certain categories of people. It consisted in the fact that the occupied territories of the USSR were literally inundated with narrowly targeted materials that openly, let’s say, advertised Wehrmacht soldiers as liberators from the “Bolshevik yoke.” The “liberators” were depicted either with radiant smiles against the backdrop of groups of joyful “liberated” Soviet children, or with menacing faces that showed what “righteous” anger they harbored towards the Bolsheviks and other “undesirable elements” of Soviet society.

Propaganda poster of the Third Reich

At the same time, the Nazi occupation forces used the power they had gained to build on their success using a principle that had been actively used since ancient Rome. The principle is well-known, and it says: “divide and conquer.” The first part of this principle was manifested in the exposure of the so-called Jewish question in the occupied territories, when citizens were thrown a hook with the bait in the form of “world Jewry is to blame for all the troubles of the Soviet people.” It is amazing how easily tens of thousands of Soviet people swallowed this bait, not without enthusiasm carrying out the will of the “liberators” in terms of the total destruction of the Jewish population of such cities as Riga, Kyiv, Minsk, Smolensk. Propaganda did its job: people were divided into varieties, in which one type was supposed to become an accomplice of Nazism and executioners, and the other was to become a victim of one person’s sick fantasy.

Citizens were encouraged to participate in Jewish pogroms and searches for the families of political workers who did not have time to escape from the territories captured by the Germans. Some tried to protect themselves from the overwhelming propaganda stream coming from Germany, while others actively tried on the role of assistants to the “liberation army”, willingly signing up for police squads to establish a new order in the territory of the so-called Reich Commissariats.

Propaganda promised those who were ready to cooperate with the German troops literally mountains of gold: from a solid allowance for those times, food rations to the opportunity to exercise their power over persons in the entrusted territory. Mass registration in the police (policei) was noted not in the territory of the Reiskomissariat Ostland, which included the Baltic Republics, eastern Poland and western Belarus. The status of a policeman attracted all those who saw in the German army something that was “serious and long lasting.” At the same time, among the policemen, let’s say, recruited by the German side, there could be people who a few weeks ago (before the German occupation) declared their active support of the Soviet regime... A kind of naked hypocrisy, based on the basest human feelings, skillfully used by the German occupation authorities to solve your problems.

In the photo - policemen of the city of Rivne

And among these tasks was the task of cultivating collaborationism, which grew on the soil of opportunism. The problem was solved in different ways: somewhere it was outright intimidation - the same stick, somewhere it was attraction with the help of a “carrot” in the form of a description of all the bright colors of the life of a person collaborating with the new authorities. The propaganda press was constantly used.
One of the methods of the Nazis in the occupied territories was a propaganda method related to the fact that the Third Reich was supposedly going to restore the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodox believers, especially representatives of the clergy, very positively greeted the news that came from the mouths of the occupying forces. The priests were initially indeed given a certain freedom in the occupied territories, but only a person who firmly adheres to his convictions can call what the Nazis did in the occupied regions of the USSR the restoration of the church and spiritual traditions of the Russian people.

The move to “revive” the role of the Russian Orthodox Church is a bright and attractive picture, which in fact had nothing to do with reality. The church eventually became one of the mechanisms of a propaganda attack on the people who found themselves literally face to face with the enslavers.

Tells Tatyana Ivanovna Shapenko(born 1931), resident of the city of Rylsk, Kursk region. This ancient Russian city was under German occupation from October 5, 1941 to August 30, 1943.

When the Germans entered the city, my younger sister and I hid behind a long plank fence and looked out into the street through a crack. I remember how a few minutes before this, a local clerk, or whatever his rank was called in the church, was running down the street with a large circle of black bread and kept trying to beg someone for a clean towel. He shouted something like: come out, don’t be afraid, these are our saviors coming. While he was running, several more people whom I did not know joined him. It seems they didn’t wait for the towel, but they treated the Germans to bread... I remember this picture, and I also remember how these “saviors” then shook out every house, looked for food, and something else...

I also remember how the Germans first turned on their music at full volume, and then some voice spoke for a long time in such bad Russian that their army had come to help us, and the German authorities would now give us bread and work. This was before they started looting houses.

I remember how the flag with a black swastika stuck out for a long time from the bell tower window. Then one of the boys took it off. They looked for him for a long time, they said: if they don’t catch him, ten others will be shot...

A resident of the Voronezh region tells Anastasia Vasilievna Nikulina(b. 1930). In 1941-1957 she lived in the city of Bryansk (occupied from October 6, 1941 to September 17, 1943).

I was 11-12 years old then. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much. I’ll tell you what stuck in my memory until the end of my days. The three of us lived: me, my mother and my older sister. My sister was already 19; she worked in a workshop before the Germans arrived. So, when the Germans occupied the city, a guy - our Russian - began to visit us often. It seems like a boyfriend to his sister. Misha, it seems... As I later found out, he and Olga (sister) were still working at the factory. Then the mother was still surprised - why Mishka was not at the front, how did he stay in the city. In general, I walked and walked, and then one evening (either it was late autumn, or it was already winter) this Misha suddenly collapses in black high boots, the jacket is also black, the hat, I remember, and a white bandage on his arm. We already knew then that this is how police officers dress up. I went into the house. His mother saw him with this bandage, got up from the table (I remember she was sewing something for me) and said quietly: get out of my house, German henchman.
And the sister also stood next to her mother... He stood there for a while, swore, turned around and left, and then, maybe half an hour later, he returned, and with him two more - all with rifles. They grabbed the mother, grabbed Olga, barely gave her shoes and took her somewhere. I burst into tears... I fell on the porch, severely sprained my leg, and they were taken away into the night. Then Olya returned... Dirty, clothes torn, blood on her face. There are no tears. The eyes, I remember, are somehow inhuman... He says: mom... mom... So detached. It wasn’t even her voice...

Then I found out what happened. And with Olya... And with my mother... Only Olya was released, but my mother was killed... With the butt of a rifle... They didn’t even let us bury her in a Christian way...

And when our city was liberated in 1943, several policemen (this Misha was no longer there) said that they were partisans in the forests. But everyone in our area knew how they were partisans... Now I remember: forgive me, Lord, I was so happy when they were hanged right from our car. I kept saying to myself: this is for your mother, bastards!.. And I myself was looking for that Misha with my eyes in the crowd... I didn’t find it...

The propaganda machine used every opportunity to lure more people to the side of the Third Reich. One of these moves was film screenings in cinemas (improvised cinemas) in occupied cities. These shows began with the invariable “Die Deutsche Wochenschau” - a propaganda film magazine telling about the “glorious” victories of the Wehrmacht. These magazines were broadcast, among other things, in Germany, demonstrating what kind of “non-humans” the “Aryan” soldiers had to fight with. Propaganda used Red Army soldiers from Central Asia or, for example, Yakutia as “non-humans”. In general, if a Red Army soldier had a Mongoloid appearance, then he was simply an ideal “hero” for Wochenschau - a magazine designed to show the superiority of the German army and the Aryan race over everyone and everything.

Propaganda poster

Only the same magazines tried not to tell that the Reich even encouraged other representatives of the Mongoloid race (the Japanese, for example). They also tried not to tell the citizens of the Reich that the “unwashed and dark Slavs” represented by the Romanian regiments were actively fighting on the side of the Wehrmacht. Otherwise, the very fact of the “Aryan conquest of the world” would have been clearly blurred...

But in these and other similar “film sketches” it was often shown how “wonderful” life was for those Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians who “left” to work in the Third Reich. Coffee with cream, ironed uniforms, leather boots, rivers of beer, sausages, sanatoriums and even swimming pools...

Nazi propaganda poster

Like, you just recognize the Third Reich together with Adolf Hitler as the legitimate government, you just betray your neighbor, take part in anti-Jewish pogroms, swear allegiance to the new order...

However, with all the power of this propaganda machine, it never managed to capture the minds of the majority. Yes - there were those who could not resist the temptations to touch the new government, there were those who naively believed that the new government really saw them as individuals and protected their interests. But no propaganda efforts could break the will of the people, which was stronger than any idea of ​​division, segregation, or enslavement.

The enemy realized that no posters and no carefully selected shots could force these people to their knees.

The territory of the Soviet Union captured by the Germans was subject to both military (operational area) and civil (civil administration area) administration. Special rights were primarily given to the commissioner of the four-year plan, Hermann Goering (the management of the economy in the occupied areas was carried out by the “headquarters for economic management of the East”) and the Reichsführer SS and the chief of the German police, Heinrich Himmler (responsible for “police support”). In addition, Himmler, as Reich Commissioner, put forward broad demands to “strengthen the German people.” The SS and police services were not limited to performing their direct functions; their influence in the occupied territories constantly increased during the war.
The military administration was headed by the Quartermaster General of the High Command of the Ground Forces (7th Department of the Military Administration). The chiefs of military administration under groups of forces were simultaneously commanders of ground forces in the rear areas, and under the armies they were commandants of the rear areas of the armies. Security divisions and other military units, as well as local auxiliary forces, were subordinate to them. The primary bodies of military administration included the field commandant and the garrison commander. Overall responsibility for civil administration was vested in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Regions under the leadership of Alfred Rosenberg, while actual local authority lay rather in the hands of the Reich Commissioners. The administration of the entire civilian population was entrusted to the “Reichskommissariat Ostland” (Baltic states and Belarus) under the leadership of Heinrich Lohse. The Reichskommissariat of Ukraine was led by Erich Koch. The Reichskommissariats were divided, in turn, into general and regional commissariats.

The competence of the institutions under the four-year plan, as well as the SS and police services, included directives to the Reich Commissioners and their subordinate bodies. “Wehrmacht commanders” appointed personally by Hitler also had this right. They had special powers in matters of both the military economy and military security in the territory subordinate to the civilian department. The lack of a clear delineation of relevant powers led to constant conflicts between various services.
Individual department services treated the local population very differently and had different ideas about the future of the occupied areas. Decisions regarding the implementation of a merciless policy aimed at the exploitation and destruction of the local population were entrusted primarily to the SS and police, but also to the headquarters for economic management of the East, to individual departments of the civil administration and to the Wehrmacht. At the same time, the occupation authorities applied a differentiated approach to the population (not least according to the criterion of “racial usefulness”), and a certain part was attracted to cooperation. All this was aimed at achieving a single goal - the establishment of long-term German dominance in the East.

Excerpts from Alfred Rosenberg's speech on June 20, 1941 about political demands in the upcoming war against the Soviet Union.



20. 4. 1941 Hitler appointed Rosenberg “plenipotentiary for the centralized resolution of issues in the Eastern European space.”

Supplying the German people with food in these years is, without a doubt, the main German requirement in the East, therefore the southern regions and the North Caucasus should become a source of supplying the German people with food. In no case do we consider ourselves obligated to supply the Russian population from these most fertile regions. We know that this is a severe necessity that is beyond the senses. There will no doubt be a widespread evacuation required, and the Russians will certainly have very difficult years ahead. [...]
Today we are waging a “crusade” against Bolshevism not only in order to save the “poor Russians” from it, but also to carry out German world politics and ensure the security of the German Reich. [...]
It seems to me that the task of our policy should be seen as rationally and purposefully supporting the aspirations for freedom of all these peoples and leading them to a completely definite state form, i.e. organically separate state formations (republics) from the vast territory of the Soviet Union and organize them against Moscow in order to free the German Reich from the eastern nightmare for the coming centuries. [...]
Belarus has a completely different character; but from the Baltic countries many antisocial elements will probably have to be removed, and for these undesirable elements, as well as from the General Government, Belarus is a suitable region for their reception.

"1"

An excerpt from the “Addition to Directive 33” by the Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, Keitel, dated July 23, 1941, regarding the treatment of the Soviet population.
A matter of special importance

Only through the liaison officer!
Head of the Upper Headquarters of the Fur.
High Command 23.7.1941
Wehrmacht
14 copies copy...
Supplement to Directive 33

After the report of the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, the Fuhrer ordered in addition to Directive 33:
[...]

The troops intended to ensure the security of the conquered eastern regions, given the large extent of these spaces, will be sufficient only if any resistance is suppressed not by legal punishment of the perpetrators, but when the occupying authorities instill such fear that it will suppress the feeling of protest in the population.

The responsibility for calm in the areas entrusted to them should be placed on the commanders and the troops at their disposal. Commanders must maintain security and order in their territory not by demanding more force, but by using draconian measures.

Letter from the Chief of the Security Police and SD, Reinhard Heydrich, to the Supreme Fuehrers of the Police and SS, dated July 2, 1941, regarding the tasks of the Security Police and SD in the occupied areas.

Copy!
Chief Berlin, 2.7.1941
security police.
and SD
B.No. 4-1180/41 g RS Secret
a) to the Supreme Führer of the Police and SS, SS-Obergruppenführer Jeckeln (via Krakow for speedy transfer) c) to the Supreme Führer of the Police and SS Gruppenführer SS von dem Bach (via the SPSD commander in Warsaw for speedy transfer) c) to the Supreme Führer of the Police and SS Gruppenführer SS Prützmann ( via Tilsit police for speedy transfer)

e) to the Supreme Fuhrer of the Police and SS, Oberfuhrer Korsemann (through SS Standartenfuhrer Ohlendorf)
After the chief of the police for maintaining order invited the Supreme Fuehrers of the SS and the police involved in the implementation of the “Barbarossa Plan” to a meeting in Berlin, without informing me of this, I was unable to provide you with fundamental instructions on the scope of the activities of the security police and SD .
In the following, I urgently convey my instructions to the operational groups and teams of the Security Police and SD with a request for strict implementation. [...]

3) search measures:
On the basis of the special wanted list “Ost” issued by the Main Directorate of Reich Security, the operational teams of the Security Police and SD should begin efforts to search for persons from this list.
Since it is impossible to cover all dangerous persons in the Soviet Union, it is necessary to take appropriate measures to capture and destroy all who are political opponents, even if they are not included in the specified list.

4) Executions:
All figures of the Comintern (and in general all professional communist politicians) are subject to execution;
party workers of the Central Committee, regional committees, district committees of the highest and middle levels, as well as extremists from the bottom;
people's commissars;
Jews who held party and government positions;
extremist elements (saboteurs, propagandists, terrorists, rebels, instigators, etc.)
in each individual case, if they cannot or can no longer be used to obtain information of a political and economic nature. [...]
Do not interfere with attempts to cleanse yourself of communists and Jews in the newly occupied areas. On the contrary, they must be encouraged, but without leaving traces, so that these local “self-defense” figures cannot later refer to orders or political guarantees. [...]
Shooting doctors and other persons engaged in medical practice should be carried out especially carefully. [...]

sub: Heydrich
correct: (print)
sub: Hellmut,
regimental secretary

Excerpt from Hermann Goering’s statement at a meeting with the communications headquarters of the military-economic and material department on September 16, 1941 about food for the Soviet population.

It is clear that gradation in food supply is necessary.
Active troops come first, then other troops in the enemy country and local troops. Accordingly, nutritional standards are established. Then the German non-military population is supplied, and only then the local population of the occupied areas. Only those who work for us should be provided with food in occupied areas. Even if we wanted to provide food for all other inhabitants, this would be impossible in the newly occupied eastern territory.

Circular letter from the commander of the rear of the group of troops Süd dated 8.2.1942 on the use of the Soviet civilian population in road clearing work.

Commander of the rear of the group of forces Süd Department 1a 5099/42 Secret Headquarters, 8. 2. 1942 Rel.: maintenance and clearing of roads.

Roads for supplying armies must be kept in passable condition at all times. To do this, at the request of the troops, it is necessary to ensure by the most firm methods the unquestioning participation in the work of the entire civilian population, be it in a snowstorm or in the cold. Dealing with the difficulties of winter requires toughness and a full understanding of the tactical necessity of these measures. Gentlemen, divisional commanders, field and local commandants are personally responsible to me for the strictest implementation of these measures.
Commanders who refuse this will face removal from office and punishment, of which I must be immediately notified.
von Rock

Excerpt from a report on the speech of Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Erich Koch at a meeting in Rivne from August 26 to 28, 1942 on the subject of treatment of Ukraine.

"La Fuhrer" is an abbreviation for the Fuhrer of Agriculture. As a representative of economic management, he controlled local agriculture.

Gauleiter arrived directly from the Fuhrer's headquarters and expressed to us in unusually grateful words the Fuhrer's gratitude for the work of the "La Fuhrers." He outlined his political point of view and his tasks as Reich Commissioner as follows: there is no free Ukraine. The goal of our work is to force Ukrainians to work for Germany, and not to make these people happy. Ukraine must supply what Germany does not have. This work must be carried out without regard for losses. All European countries are doing better than here. Our food supply in the Reich is carried out using a rationing system. The black market is allowed only to a small extent. For other nations, the black market is the basis; additional cards are issued. The food situation in Germany is serious.

Production is falling due to the difficult food situation. Increasing the grain ration is a political necessity to continue the war until victory. The missing amount of grain must be replenished at the expense of Ukraine. The Führer made the Gauleiter responsible for ensuring that this number was secured. Supplying the civilian population, due to the importance of this task, is completely indifferent. Thanks to the black market, it lives better than we imagine. There is no room for discussions about new taxes. The Fuhrer demanded from Ukraine 3 million tons of grain for the Reich, and they must be delivered. He does not want to listen to complaints about the lack of vehicles. The transport problem should be solved using your own imagination.

Letter from the head of the party chancellery Martin Bormann to Reich Minister Rosenberg dated July 23, 1942 about the treatment of the local population.

Copy!
Rc 536 Ag Rs.
Reichsleiter
Martin Bormann

Mr. Reichsleiter
Albert Rosenberg Personally!
Berlin B 35
Rauchstrasse 17/18
Dear Parteigenosse Rosenberg!
The Fuehrer wishes, and I inform you of this on his instructions, that you take care to observe and implement the following principles in the occupied eastern regions:

1. If women and girls in the occupied eastern regions have abortions, then this is only for the better for us; German lawyers should under no circumstances object to this. According to the Fuehrer, the trade in contraceptives should even be allowed in the occupied eastern regions, since we are not at all interested in the growth of the non-German population.



2. The danger that the non-German population in the eastern regions will begin to grow more than before is very great, since all living conditions for the non-German population are, of course, becoming much better. That is why we must take the necessary measures against the growth of the non-German population.

3. In no case should German medical care be introduced for the non-German population in the occupied eastern regions. There can be no question, for example, of vaccinations and similar preventive measures for the non-German population.

4. The non-German population should under no circumstances be allowed to participate in higher education. If we make this mistake, we ourselves will grow the resistance to come. According to the Fuehrer, it is absolutely enough for the non-German population - including the so-called Ukrainians - to be able to read and write.

5. Under no circumstances should any measures be taken to instill a sense of mastery in the non-German population! It is necessary to do exactly the opposite!

6. Instead of the current written characters, normal script should be taught in schools in the future.

7. The Germans must in any case be removed from Ukrainian cities; even accommodation in barracks outside the cities is better than in the cities! Under no circumstances should Russian (Ukrainian) cities be improved, since the standard of living of the population should not be increased, and the Germans should settle in newly built cities and villages, from which the entire Russian (Ukrainian) population should be strictly removed. Therefore, the houses that will be built for the Germans should in no case be similar to Russian (Ukrainian) houses (coated with clay, with a thatched roof, etc.).

8. In the old Reich, the Fuhrer emphasized, too much was regulated and prescribed; We must under no circumstances repeat this mistake in the eastern regions. For the non-German population, therefore, too much should not be regulated: here we should limit ourselves to only the most necessary. The German administration must therefore in any case be small in number; the regional commissioner must work with local officials; In no case should there be a single Ukrainian administration down to the General Commissioner or Reich Commissioner.

I gave a copy of this letter to the Reich Minister and the Chief of the Chancellery.
Heil Hitler!
Your sub:
M. Bormann
Mr. Reichskommissar and
beginning Reich Chancellery Dr.
Lammers Berlin, with a request
read sub: M. Bormann

Economic management

The main leadership for economic management in the occupied Soviet regions was in the hands of the Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan, Hermann Goering, and the “Headquarters for Economic Management Ost” subordinate to him. Directly in the regions, the “Economic Headquarters of the East” acted with subordinate “economic inspections” and “economic commands” (in the operational area) or “military inspections” and “military commands” (in the areas of civil administration). An important role was played locally by the “La Fuhrers”, who stood at the bottom rung of the hierarchical ladder, but were responsible for direct control of agricultural production. From the end of 1941, economic management also included numerous headquarters of work brigades and labor departments, which were supposed to ensure the supply of forced labor for the needs of the German war economy.

The main goals of economic management were to meet the needs of the troops and maximize the withdrawal of food and raw materials for the needs of the German war economy. With the failure of the Blitzkrieg in the occupied areas, important arms production also had to be put into operation to cover the immediate needs of the Wehrmacht, although the long-term deindustrialization of the country was planned.

The economic exploitation of the occupied areas took place in close interaction between state and private economic interests and active actions. “Eastern companies” (as well as “monopoly companies”), which had a trade monopoly in certain sectors of the economy, were managed by both the state and the private sector. Under "trust management" (also known as "sponsored management"), individual enterprises were run by German firms or consortiums under government supervision. The implementation of the privatization of industrial and commercial enterprises, which entrepreneurs sought from the very beginning, was postponed until the post-war period.

Excerpt from the order of the Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan, Hermann Goering, dated July 27, 1941, on the economic direction of German occupation policy.

Reichsmarshal Berlin, 27 June 1941
Great German Empire
Commissioner for four-year
plan V.P. 12028

Based on the order of the Fuhrer on the economy in the occupied eastern regions of June 29 this year. I prescribe the following:

1. The goal of economic leadership in the occupied Russian regions is not to quickly put the entire economy in order; the extent of Russian territory and the lack of relevant specialists force us to place a clear emphasis on those sectors of the economy that play a decisive role for the German military economy. These decisive areas are grains, oilseeds, petroleum and light metals.

6. In principle, when choosing the means by which militarily important industries are to be managed
economy, the decisive factor is only the fact of business expediency, i.e. The question is how to achieve the highest possible productivity.

7. Finally, what is decisive for all measures is that military sectors have absolute priority. I expect from all economic departments in the occupied eastern regions that this principle will be observed under all circumstances.
signature: Goering

Excerpt from a message from the Eastern Communications Service under I. G. Farbenindustri AG dated January 3, 1942 on the economic and political future of the occupied Soviet territory.

On the issue of using the existing opportunities for restoration work in the eastern regions, it should be mentioned once again that the East should be considered as a purely agricultural and raw material base. The main directions for future measures in the occupied regions include the decisive liquidation of industrial cities in the south, as well as the dismantling of usable machinery stock, especially for the production of non-ferrous metals, etc. All efforts should be concentrated on agriculture and oil production.

Excerpt from a letter from the head of the main group for food and agriculture in the Eastern Ministry, Hans-Joachim Rikke, to the department of food and agriculture at the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine dated April 22, 1942 about supply quotas in Ukraine.

Reich Minister for the Occupied
eastern regions
111/E 3/101-8435/42
111/E 3/101-35/42
April 22, 1942
Eastern Ministry
Secret!
To Mr. Reichskommissar of Ukraine
Food and Agriculture Department
Smooth

Rel.: orders of the economic headquarters of the Ostshefgruppa Pa on in-kind taxation in the business year 1942/43.
To the message dated April 1, 1942 Ats.2/557 -2a 1-

The counterarguments presented in your report dated April 1, 1942 against the establishment of a natural tax of 33.3% are known here and were the subject of detailed discussion when developing the order. And yet, I came to the size of supply established by the order for the following reasons: The food situation in the Reich, which hardly needs to be discussed in more detail, forces us to attach paramount importance to supplies to the Reich under all circumstances. Therefore, it is impossible to make the installation of natural taxation dependent on considerations that take into account, first of all, the need for seeds, feed and Ukraine’s own food consumption. The consequences arising from the concealment of these quantities of food necessary for consumption in Ukraine itself are known to me. But here it must be said quite clearly that these consequences should contribute to the interests of supplying the Reich. [...]


The food consumption of Ukraine itself must be decided last, since in the coming winter it is quite clear whether the ration norm in Germany should be reduced by an even more unacceptable amount or whether some Ukrainians should go hungry. [...]

Commissioned by: Signed: Rikke

SS and police

Along with military, civil and economic administration, the SS and police played an independent role in the development of concepts of domination and their implementation in the occupied territories. As Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police, Himmler was in charge of “police support.” As chief of the SS troops, he had, among other things, large military formations at his disposal. As Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Nationality, he played a decisive role in developing plans for the occupied territories.

In order to ensure long-term German rule, the “General Plan Ost” envisaged a radical reduction of the indigenous population through planned famine and forced eviction. This planning combined racial-ideological fantasies with economically rational concepts of spatial order.
The system of the Supreme SS and Police Fuehrers was of decisive importance for the implementation of claims to power on the part of the SS apparatus and the police. They were subordinate directly to Himmler and were responsible, each in their own area and in cooperation with local security police and SD, for the implementation of the main tasks of the SS and police and formed the actual backbone of the “SS State”, the features of which were increasingly visible in the occupied territory Soviet Union.

From the beginning of the war, the mobile task forces (A-D) of the Security Police and SD, formed by the Main Directorate of Imperial Security, immediately followed the army units into the occupied areas. Their task was the political and police struggle against all “elements hostile to the Reich,” as Heydrich, head of the Main Directorate of Reich Security, formulated it. All kinds of “suspicious” - communists, Jews, gypsies, refugees and other “undesirable” population groups - were subject to immediate destruction, i.e. without trial or investigation. Separate task forces, divided into operational and special teams, consisted of no more than 500 - 1000 people. However, when carrying out mass killings, they were supported by other police units (uniform law enforcement police), SS troops, local auxiliary police units and partially, for example, when cordoning off execution sites, military units.

An excerpt from the General Plan Ost (GPO), as amended in June 1942, about the “Germanization” of the occupied Soviet regions.

The GPO was developed by the planning headquarters of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Nationality under the leadership of Prof. Conrad Mayer. Himmler instructed Mayer already in May 1941 to develop a plan for settling and establishing order in the occupied Polish regions. The first edition of the GPO, presented on July 15, 1941, was revised from January to March 1942. The excerpt is taken from the second edition, prepared before June 1942.

PART C DELIMITATION OF SETTLEMENT TERRITORIES IN THE OCCUPIED EASTERN REGIONS AND PRINCIPLES OF RESTORATION:

The penetration of German life into large areas of the East confronts the Reich with the urgent need to find new forms of settlement in order to bring into harmony the size of the territory and the number of German persons present.
In the General Plan Ost of July 15, 1941, the delimitation of new territories was provided as the basis for development for 30 years. Based on the instructions of the Reichsführer SS, the following areas should be settled first:

1) Ingria (St. Petersburg region)
2) Gotengrau (Crimea and Kherson region, formerly Tavria); further offered for occupancy:
3) Memel-Narva region (Bialystok region and Western Lithuania).

This region, including the eastern regions, belongs to the advanced positions and is the geopolitical point of two major settlement directions. The Germanization of Western Lithuania is already taking place through the return of the original Germans (“Volksdeutsche”). It seems necessary to create special legal conditions in these three areas as border areas of settlements (A III), since they fulfill a special task as a fort post of the German people.

In order to more closely connect these border settlement areas with the Reich and provide transport links between them, it is proposed to build 36 stronghold settlement points along the main railway lines and highways (of which 14 are in the General Government). These points are adjacent to the currently favorably located central points and are covered by SS and police strongholds. The distance between the strongholds is about 100 km. The total area of ​​each strong point is about 2000 square meters. km and thus corresponds to the size of one or two land districts of the old Reich. The management of the strongholds of Ingermanland is envisaged taking into account the special importance of the Baltic space for German persons along two lines.

Excerpt from the report of the Chief of Police for the Maintenance of Order, Dalyuge, dated 1.2.1943 regarding the use of police for the maintenance of order in the occupied Soviet regions in 1941.
With the deployment of the administrative management system in the Reichskommissariats of Ostland and Ukraine, the formation of the police for maintaining order is almost complete.

The commanders of the police for maintaining order are subordinate to the Supreme Fuehrer of the SS and the police at the Reichskommissariats, and the commanders of the police for maintaining order are subordinate to the chiefs of the SS and police at the General Commissariats.

The police personnel for maintaining order in the occupied Russian regions include: Schutzpolice - 5860 people and gendarmerie - 9093 people.

Police regiments 6, 14, 15, 16 and 17 are sent to the front line to serve in the military police, and in the rear and in the Reichskommissariats - police regiments 2, 8, 9, 13, mounted police departments I and II and battalions 1/23 and 1 /24; of which police regiments 8 and 9 are in the Wehrmacht support division, in the org. Todt - 2 battalions of police regiment 28 (Todt) and in the security police - 1 battalion of police regiment 1.
The Supreme Fuehrer of the Police and SS of Central Russia in the rear of the Group Center is also subordinate to the Sonderkommando Gendarmerie, numbering 506 people, primarily for use in the fight against banditry [...].

Carrying out measures to cover and register the population, organizing the sending of foreign workers to the Reich, as well as providing food and preserving the harvest became possible only thanks to her tireless actions.
The police are faced with the most difficult tasks in maintaining order in the face of ever-increasing demands and the enormous extent of the occupied areas, which must be carried out by the above-mentioned forces, but they do not need to take on all the tasks themselves. Just as in the Reich, it goes without saying that many tasks are performed by auxiliary and reserve police, here it was necessary to create auxiliary forces from that part of the population that expresses a desire to participate in restoring order, and after a medical examination and political verification, entrust it with the implementation of police tasks with appropriate training and issue of weapons
After successful use experience. of these auxiliaries, their total strength last year increased from 33,000 to 330,000.
According to the nature of the tasks, they are divided into:
a) individual service in cities = 29,217 people.
b) individual service in rural areas = 223,737 people.
c) defense battalions = 47,972 people.
Individual service units include auxiliary, as well as fire and water rescue teams.
The activities of the teams, carried out under the supervision and after appropriate training by personnel from the Reich, extend to the performance of general police tasks within the framework of restoring order.
Defense battalions should be used primarily to ensure the fight against banditry, and more recently at the front.

Excerpt from Heinrich Himmler’s speech at Kharkov University to the commanders of the SS divisions “Totenkopf”, “Reich”, “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” 4/24/1943.

I want to say and I think that those to whom I say this already understand that we must conduct the war and our campaign with the thought of how best to take away human resources from the Russians - alive or dead? We do this when we kill them or capture them and force them to really work, when we try to take possession of an occupied area, and when we leave deserted territory to the enemy. Either they must be driven to Germany and become its labor force, or die in battle. And leaving people to the enemy so that he can have labor and military strength again is, by and large, absolutely wrong. This cannot be allowed to happen. And if this line of exterminating people is consistently pursued in the war, which I am convinced of, then the Russians will lose their strength and bleed to death already during this year and next winter.

For 1942, the map shows the maximum advance of fascist troops into the depths of the Soviet Union. On the scale of the Soviet Union, this is a small part, but what were the victims in the occupied territories.

If you look closely, in the north the Germans stopped in the area of ​​​​the current Republic of Karelia, then Leningrad, Kalinin, Moscow, Voronezh, Stalingrad. In the south we reached the area of ​​the city of Grozny. You can't describe it in a few words.

From the school history course we know that the Nazis in the USSR reached such cities as Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Grozny, Kalinin, Voronezh. After 1942, when the Nazis advanced as far as possible across the territory of the USSR, they began to retreat. You can see their progress in more detail on the map:



The Germans advanced quite a lot deep into the territory of the Soviet Union. But they were never able to take strategically important cities: neither Moscow nor Leningrad submitted. In the Leningrad direction they were stopped near the city of Tikhvin. In the Kalinin direction - near the village of Mednoye. Near Stalingrad we reached the Volga, the last outpost was the village of Kuporosnoye. On the western front, near the city of Rzhev, the Germans were knocked out at the cost of incredible efforts (remember the famous poem by Tvardovsky, I was killed near Rzhev). They also fought furiously for the Caucasus, which was of strategic importance - access to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. They were stopped near the city of Maykop.



Where the fascists reached is already a well-known matter, and every historian can accurately tell everything in detail, about every point, about every city and village in which fierce battles took place, everything is especially well described and remains in the memory in books that can be read through For many years I just picked it up and read it.

And this is what the map looks like:



There are a lot of maps shown, but I will say in words: During the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis came close to Moscow, they were only 30 km away from Moscow, but they were stopped there. Naturally, I know everything about the blockade of Leningrad, the Battle of Kursk, and the Rzhev direction. Here is a map of the battle for Moscow.



http://dp60.narod.ru/image/maps/330.jpg

This is the line of maximum advance of the Germans &; Co deep into Soviet territory.

There are many types of cards.

To be honest, I don’t really trust the Internet, I trust history textbooks more.

I live in Belarus myself and therefore the map may not be much different.

But here’s the photo I took, just for you!



The Nazis went far, but, as you know, they failed to capture Moscow. I was interested in information not long ago when the Nazis began to retreat. It was possible to find only some facts about events near Moscow. You can quote:

The map shows the territory of the USSR, which the Germans managed to pass through until November 15, 1942 (after which they went a little deeper and began to retreat):



The German offensive against the USSR was in 1941, they almost achieved their goal, and the Nazis had only about thirty kilometers left to reach Moscow, but they still failed, but here is a map where everything is described in detail



They were near Moscow - 30 km, and were defeated there, it’s better to read on Wikipedia, everything is described there in detail and there are dates with a video, look here. But here is the map in the photos below, everything is marked with black arrows.



During the Great Patriotic War, Nazi Germany captured significant territory of the former USSR.

The troops of the Third Reich occupied many republics of the then union. Among them are part of the RSFSR, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic republics.

Below on the map you can see the border (thick red line) where the Nazis entered during the hostilities: