ARLZ measures

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German pioneers mine a bridge, Calvados, France, June 1944
Finland 1944: Sodankylä destroyed in the German-Finnish Lapland War

ARLZ measures on the German side during the Second World War were specially compiled regulations for loosening, evacuation, paralysis and destruction during the evacuation of occupied areas, which were to be carried out by the Wehrmacht when they withdrew.

Emergence

These tactical and strategic scorched earth measures resulted from a corresponding directive issued by the East Economic Staff on February 21, 1943, in which, in consultation with the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production, the measures to be taken when the occupied territories were cleared were summarized. The aim was to leave as little manpower, potential soldiers, food, raw materials and industrial plants as possible for the enemy, each stepped according to the local situation. On September 11, 1943, General Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, as commander of Army Group South, issued a separate order for the implementation of ARLZ measures in his area of ​​operations (Eastern Front).

With the advance of the Allies in the final phase of the war, the measures were also extended to the territory of the German Reich. On March 19, 1945, Hitler signed the order for destruction measures in Reich territory , later called the Nero order.

The measures in detail

  • When opposing troops approached a certain area occupied by the German side, loosening measures had to be carried out, which meant the removal of valuable raw materials and finished goods as well as the rectification of concentrated accumulations of storage facilities, staffs and industrial plants.
  • Moved the fighting up to the immediate vicinity of the area before, were at the existing industrial plants paralysis measures carried out to make important so through the dismantling of important parts and the removal materials industrial facilities currently manufacture incapable, but with the possibility for an eventual recapture of the area concerned these facilities to be able to quickly start up again.
  • Only when the final evacuation, the final loss of a certain occupied area was imminent, the existing supplies, equipment and finished goods, insofar as they could not be transported away, had to be destroyed and transformed into so-called desert zones . In the final evacuation should then - the local civilian population - as far as possible forced labor deported to levels of urgency (1 mining and metals skilled workers, the second technical and specialized workers, 3. agriculture and 4. other), also known as gripping actions were described . The same applied to the livestock, which had to be killed in the absence of transport. Incapable of working people were left helpless in the destroyed villages.

The ARLZ measures were because of their widely unclear regulations and the widespread uncertainty regarding their interpretation and application on 6 September 1944 by Chief of OKW , Wilhelm Keitel clarified again. Basically, less was destroyed in the western and southern operational areas (France, Italy) than in the east (Soviet Union), where the destruction measures were carried out as completely as possible. The Gauleiter was responsible for the ARLZ measures on German territory .

End of war

Head of OKW Keitel as a defendant at the Nuremberg trial

Between March 1945 and the end of the war on May 8, 1945, there were repeated disputes between the industry-friendly circle around Armaments Minister Albert Speer on the one hand and the Wehrmacht leadership and Hitler on the other over the paralysis or destruction of certain industrial companies and regions on German Reich territory . They culminated in Hitler's Nero order of March 19, 1945, which Speer claims to have tried to neutralize afterwards.

In the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals at the end of 1945 it was made clear that the scorched earth measure constitutes a war crime in the event of disproportionate destruction, excessive looting of state or private property and the deportation of civilians from the occupied territories. As a result, those responsible such as B. General Balck convicted in succession trials.

literature

  • Norbert Müller: occupation, robbery, annihilation . Berlin 1980, DNB 36925547X .
  • Matthias Schmidt: Albert Speer - The end of a myth . Munich 1982, ISBN 3-502-16668-4 , p. 135 ff.
  • H. Breloer: The Speer files - traces of a war criminal . Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-549-07287-2 , p. 242 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller : The German economic policy in the occupied Soviet territories 1941-1943: the final report of the economic staff east and notes of a member of the economic command of Kiev. Harald Boldt Verlag 1991, ISBN 3-7646-1905-8 , p. 561 ff.
  2. ↑ Fabian Lemmes: Forced Labor in Occupied Europe. The Todt Organization in France and Italy, 1940–1945. In: Andreas Heusler, Mark Spoerer, Helmuth Trischler (eds.): Armaments, war economy and forced labor in the "Third Reich". Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-58858-3 .
  3. ^ Norbert Müller: occupation, robbery, annihilation. Berlin 1980, p. 409 f.
  4. ↑ In the meantime, this information has been questioned, cf. Matthias Schmidt: Albert Speer - The end of a myth. Munich 1981, p. 135 ff., As well as H. Breloer: The Speer files - traces of a war criminal. Berlin 2006, p. 242 ff.
  5. ^ Nuremberg Trial , Justice in Bavaria, Higher Regional Court Nuremberg, accessed June 20, 2015.