Labor army

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The Labor Army ( Russian : Трудовая армия Trudowaja armija , short трудармия Trudarmija ) was a militarized form of forced labor in Soviet Russia in the early 1920s (1st period) and from 1942 to 1946 (2nd period) in the Soviet Union . In the second period mainly Russian Germans were affected , but also the Finno-Ugric Komi and other national minorities in the Soviet Union such as Romanians , Hungarians , Italians , Crimean Tatars , Kalmyks , Karachay , Balkars , Chechens and Ingush .

Origin and use of the term

Use of "labor soldiers" in field work in 1920, the British tank Mark V as a tractor

The People's Commissar for Warfare Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) is considered to be the “inventor” of the labor armies of the 1st period . Josef Stalin (1879–1953) was responsible for the Ukrainian labor army at the time. The use of “labor armists” was intended to remedy the negative economic effects of war communism by bringing a large number of mobilized soldiers under military command into the economy as unpaid labor. Divisions with the name of the Labor Army were created during the Russian Civil War . The 1st Revolutionary Labor Army is documented for the beginning of 1920. According to official Soviet historiography, it served to reintegrate the soldiers of the civil war into civilian working life and was intended as a measure for the faster development of the branches of industry destroyed by the civil war. These were departments of the Red Army that were assigned to work. Red Army soldiers of all nationalities served in this labor army; it was disbanded in 1922.

The term, which dates back to the time before the founding of the Soviet Union at the end of 1922, was adopted in the second period by those members of the national minorities who were subjected to a militarized form of forced labor during and after the German-Soviet War , from 1942 to 1946: they designated as a member of the labor army - Russian "Трудармейцы", German "Arbeitsarmisten". According to Russian historians, the term labor army does not appear in official documents of the time. In everyday language he was nevertheless familiar, but Soviet historical research has only dealt with the labor army of World War II since the late 1980s .

In the German-Soviet War

First, the Russian-German members of the Red Army were transferred from the regular units to construction crews, according to a directive issued by Stalin on September 8, 1941. For the Germans in the Gulag - on the advice of the NKVD  - a separate category was found at the beginning of 1942: trudmobilisowanny nemez (German: work-mobilized German ); this became the official name for the Germans in the labor army. In October 1942, the provisions applicable to the Germans were transferred to other minorities: conscripted men from the ethnic groups of the Finno-Ugrians, Hungarians, Romanians and Italians residing in Russia were also drafted into the labor army.

The Russian historian Kurotschkin has reconstructed the following timing for the formation of the “Labor Army” from the ranks of the Russian Germans: In the first period from September 1941 to January 1942, the Russian-German men of military age were called up. Was based on a decision of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from August 31, 1941 About German, on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR live . In the second period, Russian-German men between the ages of seventeen and 50 were called up - first those who were forcibly resettled in the Asian part of the Soviet Union, then those who were already living in the Asian part of the Soviet Union. From October 1942 to December 1943 a large number of Germans from Russia were called up, including women. In the last period from January 1944 until the dissolution of the Labor Army in 1946, there were only sporadic drafts, mainly Russian Germans from the areas conquered by the Red Army were sent to the Labor Army.

Life in the labor army

Above all, the Volga Germans in the Soviet Union were forcibly recruited into the labor army . This went hand in hand with the deportation of entire peoples (see above), since these national minorities were viewed as the “ fifth column ” of the enemy. Their deployment as "labor armed forces" was therefore not carried out near the front, but far away in camps in the Ural region , in Kazakhstan or Siberia . In contrast to the first period, in the second period of the Labor Army not only conscripted men were called in, but also women and even males aged 15 and over and female minors aged 16 and over.

The legal status of "labor soldiers" was a mixture of camp prisoner, construction worker and military member, with the camp characteristics dominating. For example, food and industrial goods were allocated according to the guidelines for prisoners of the Gulag , the work teams were under NKVD supervision. Similar to Gulag prisoners, the Germans of the Labor Army were used for hard work, for example in the construction of railway lines and industrial plants, in mining or in cutting wood. In the camps, members of other nationalities were strictly forbidden from dealing with people of German origin outside of the contact necessary for work.

From October 1942 on, Russian-German women between the ages of 16 and 45 were drafted into the labor army. Only pregnant women and mothers of children under three years of age were exempt from being called to serve. This led to the neglect or death of some of the older children who remained behind.

Dissolution of the labor army

After the end of the Second World War, the units of the labor army were disbanded, and their members were integrated into the regular workforce of the companies or organizations in which they had worked. The Russian Germans were now allowed to have their families come to work if there was enough living space. The reunification of the families was not completed until the second half of the 1950s.

After the dissolution of the Labor Army, the Russian Germans were allowed to return to the places (mainly in the Asian part of the Soviet Union) - albeit only with the approval of companies and authorities - in which they were previously forcibly expelled from the original settlement areas (in the European part of the Soviet Union ) had been settled. However, they received the status of special settlers and were subordinate to the local command of the Ministry of the Interior (MWD) until 1955 . A return to the original settlement areas was forbidden, they had to waive in writing compensation for the expropriated property.

See also

literature

Documents

The following decrees of the State Defense Committee of the USSR relate to the drafting and use of Germans in the labor army:

  • Decree № 1123сс on the use of German resettlers aged 17 to 50 years of age 10 January 1942 (Russian: “О порядке использования немцев-переселенцев призеленцев призывного призывного возрет.
  • Decree № 1281сс: On the mobilization of German men of military age from 17 to 50 who have a permanent place of residence in the districts, counties, autonomous republics and union republics February 14, 1942 (Russian: “О мобилизации немцев-мужчин призтыв мужчин призтыв 17 до 50 лет, постоянно проживающих в областях, краях, автономных и союзных республиках ”от 14 февраля 1942
  • Decree № 2383 On the Additional Mobilization of Germans for the National Economy of the USSR October 7, 1942 (Russian: “О дополнительной мобилизации немцев для народного хозяйства С 7СРо42”).
  • In addition, there is the NKW directive № 0083 of January 12, 1942: On the organization of units of the mobilized Germans in the camps of the NKVD of the USSR (Russian: “Об организации отрядов из мобилизованных Кгерев при Сх Сгер НВер).

research

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ А Б В Г Д Е Ж З И К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Э Ю Я - keyword labor army ( memorial from November 5, 2006 in the Internet archive ) On: Komi history website
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Ruge: 2012, p. 457
  3. ↑ Ralf Stettner: "Archipel GULag". Stalin's forced camp - a terrorist instrument and economic giant. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1996, ISBN 3-506-78754-3 , p. 95 f.
  4. ↑ Трудовые армии Keyword labor armies on the Russian history website chronos .
  5. ^ GA Goncharov: The Labor Army in the Period of the Great Patriotic War: A Russian Historiography . In Ekonomitscheskaja istorija, No. 7. Moscow 2001, pp. 154–162. Russian: Г.А.Гончаров: “Трудовая армия” периода Великой Отечественной войны: российская историография ; In: ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКАЯ ИСТОРИЯ, ОБОЗРЕНИЕ, ВЫПУСК 7, Центр экономической истории при Историческом ГетульМетул. М.В.Ломоносова, Под редакцией Л.И.Бородкина
  6. ↑ Goncharov, p. 154
  7. ↑ Quoted from Goncharov, p. 160
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Ruge: 2012, p. 457