Reichskommissariat Ostland

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Location of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in Europe, 1942

The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) was established during the Second World War after the attack by the German Reich on the Soviet Union in June 1941 in the Baltic States and parts of Belarus . The political organization of the area was taken over - in addition to a military administration by the Wehrmacht  - a civil administration, which was under the direction of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg .

The main political goals pursued by the ministry as part of the National Socialist Ostpolitik were the complete annihilation of the Jewish population and the “ Germanization ” of large parts of the population - not least in the Reichskommissariat Ostland and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine . The Germanization policy was carried out on the basis of the General Plan East , special decrees and guidelines and later on the basis of the General Settlement Plan in the East.

Above all by the Einsatzgruppen A and B, around one million Jews were murdered in the Reichskommissariat Ostland. With the end of the war and the fall of National Socialism , the Ostland was dissolved in the spring of 1945.

history

Planning before the attack on the Soviet Union

Originally, the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg , intended to use the designation " Balten- Land" for the "Eastern Land" , which was designated as of the summer of 1941. On the other hand, according to a later statement by Otto Bräutigam , who was a central employee of Rosenberg at the time, " the Baltic friends " of Rosenberg had spoken out vehemently, since a "Reichskommissariat Baltikum " would also include " Beloruthenia ", "and with it the White Ruthenians would also be stamped Baltic " . Another important colleague of Rosenberg, Georg Leibbrandt , also spoke out against this proposal, since otherwise the sympathies of the Balts, who wanted their own designation, could be gambled away; and furthermore no "Ostland population" should be created anyway.

Border course and administration in the first year of the war

German Reichspost in the occupied territories

After the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Reichskommissariat Ostland was formed on July 25, 1941, 12:00 p.m. It emerged from parts of the rear army area north.

Its limits were initially as follows:

The seat of the administration was temporarily the city of Kaunas , later renamed Kauen .

The Ober-President and Gauleiter of Schleswig-Holstein Hinrich Lohse was appointed Reich Commissioner.

As early as August 1, 1941, 12:00 noon, the Reichskommissariat Ostland was expanded spatially from the rear Central Army Area.

Its new limits were provisionally as follows:

  • Northwest: Previous eastern border of the Reichskommissariat Ostland,
  • South and East: The area around Vilnius , bounded in the east and south-east by the former Lithuanian border.

The next change followed as the fighting continued on September 1, 1941, 12:00 noon .

At this point in time the Reichskommissariat Ostland was expanded from the rear Central Army Area, as far as it was within the following limits:

  • West: Previous eastern border of the Reichskommissariat Ostland and the Bialystok district ;
  • South: border to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine ;
  • East and north: The rear central army area to the line Sankewitschi1 / Lenino am Slutsch / course of the Slutsch to Sluzk / Rudensk on the railway line Minsk-Bobruisk / Smilowitschi on the Volna / Borissow (exclusively) / course of the Berezina to Berezino (about 80 km north Borissow.) / Disna on the Daugava to the former Latvian-Russian border (including places with the exception of Borissow and places on the rivers mentioned), the rear northern army area to the line formerly the Latvian-Russian border / formerly the Latvian-Estonian border.

Riga was appointed as the final seat of the administration .

On November 1, 1941, the city of Grodno and its surroundings joined the Bialystok District .

The last expansion occurred on 5 December 1941 and applied from 12:00 . After that, the former Estonia passed from the rear army area north to the Reichskommissariat Ostland. From a military point of view, however, the area remained the Army’s operational area.

Disintegration of the Reich Commissioner from 1943

In the course of 1943/1944, the Reich Commissariat was gradually recaptured by the Red Army .

At the beginning of 1944, when the unoccupied district areas of Brest , Kobryn and Pinsk of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine no longer allowed an independent administration, this border strip was subordinated to the administration of the general district of Belarus in the Reichskommissariat Ostland.

On September 8, 1944, the Oberpräsident and Gauleiter of the NSDAP Erich Koch in Königsberg (Pr) , previously Reich Commissioner in the Ukraine, took over provisional management in the East.

Administrative structure of the Reichskommissariat Ostland

Administrative division

The Reichskommissariat Ostland was divided into four general districts with the corresponding number of German district areas. The German divisions largely followed the earlier local demarcations. The general districts each comprised one of the formerly independent Baltic states and also the formerly Polish part of Belarus (including the area around Minsk).

District areas in the Reichskommissariat Ostland 1944
Estonia General District Latvia General District Lithuania General District Beloruthenia General District
  1. Arensburg
  2. Dorpat
  3. Narva
  4. Pernau
  5. Pechur
  6. Reval city
  7. Reval land
  1. Dünaburg
  2. Libau
  3. Mitau
  4. Riga city
  5. Riga country
  6. Wolmar
  1. Chew City
  2. Chew land
  3. Ponewesch country
  4. Schools
  5. Vilnius city
  6. Vilnius country
  1. Barisau
  2. Baranovichi
  3. Glubokoje
  4. Hanzewitz
  5. Lida
  6. Minsk city
  7. Minsk country
  8. Nowogrodek
  9. Slonim
  10. Slutsk
  11. Vilejka

In the three Baltic general districts, German area commissioners supervised the local administration of the cities, districts and administrative districts.

On April 1, 1942, further parts of the area were added from the general district of Belarus to the general district of Lithuania to generously round off the area around Vilna.

The Reichskommissariat Ostland was subordinate to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories under Alfred Rosenberg in Berlin, the so-called East Ministry.

The seats of the general commissioners were for the general districts:

In the decree of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories on the "Administration of the Reichskommissariat Ostland" of March 7, 1943 (including annexes and implementation regulations for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), the administrative structure of the general districts was largely determined. Within “certain limits” each of the three Baltic general districts was to have its own local administration under clear German leadership; special regulations applied to Belarus. The aim was once to largely relieve the burden on the German administration, which did not have enough staff to perform all administrative tasks in the general districts. Another aim was to be able to offer the Baltic peoples political incentives to actively participate in the war against the Soviet Union . As a result, there were constant disputes within the general districts themselves, between the various general districts as well as between the Reichskommissariat and the Ostministerium, as there were different views regarding the exact status of the state's own administrations.

Until the end of the occupation of the eastern part of the country, the position of the city of Riga with its German mayor Hugo Wittrock , who was also Regional Commissioner Riga-City, was unclear, since Riga was never, as planned, subordinate to the Latvian self-government bodies.

Place names

Between the world wars, when the Baltic countries were independent, the local place names were used. The Reichskommissariat Ostland reintroduced the German place names as they had been officially used up to the First World War .

The Latin alphabet was introduced for the general district of Belarus.

In the Baltics, at least each Postal code was also a name that was phonetically matched the German language.

people

Civil administration

Reich Minister

Reich Commissioner

  • Hinrich Lohse , Reich Commissioner for the East, the official seat of Riga
  • Erich Koch , Acting Reich Commissioner (from December 1944)

Reich Commissioner

General commissioners

Area Commissioners

Military administration

Wehrmacht commander

SS and police leaders

See also

literature

swell

  • Tôviyyā Friedman (ed.): SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln , responsible for the murder of Jews in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia 1941–1944. Document collection. Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crime, Haifa 1997 ( DNB ).
  • Tôviyyā Friedman (ed.): The three SS and Police Leaders in Eastern Germany, in Latvia-Riga: SS-Brigadführer Schröder , in Lithuania-Kovno: SS- Brigadführer Wysocki , in Estonia-Reval: SS-Brigadführer Möller , who were responsible for the murder of the Jews in Ostland, 1941–1944. Document collection. Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crime, Haifa 1998 ( DNB ).
  • Wolfgang Benz , Konrad Kwiet , Jürgen Matthäus (eds.): Use in the "Reichskommissariat Ostland". Documents on the genocide in the Baltic States and Belarus 1941–1944 (= National Socialist occupation policy in Europe 1939–1945. 6). Metropol, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-932482-01-8 .
  • Heinz Boberach (Ed.): Regime criticism, resistance and persecution in Germany and the occupied territories. Reports and reports from the Secret State Police Office, the SD Main Office of the SS and the Reich Security Main Office 1933–1945. Index tape for the microfiche edition. KG Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-598-34418-X (documents).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Czeslaw Madajczyk (Ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan . Saur, Munich 1994, p. XI.
  2. ^ Reinhard Pohl: Reichskommissariat Ostland: Schleswig-Holstein's colony . In: Schleswig-Holstein and the crimes of the Wehrmacht (PDF; 749 kB). Headwind -Sonderheft: The Debate on the issue war of extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941–1944 in the Kiel State House in 1999 . Pp. 10-12. headwind.info; Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  3. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving a catastrophe ..." . The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Vögel, Munich 2006, p. 76. (Sources: Bridegroom, overview, p. 4; Bormann's note from a meeting between Hitler, Rosenberg, Keitel, Göring and Lammers on July 16, 1941; IMT, vol. 38, L-221 .)
  4. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving a catastrophe ..." . The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Vögel, Munich 2006, p. 76. (Sources: Letter from Leibbrandt to Lohse and the general commissioners in the RKO, February 23, 1942, BA, R 6/172, p. 65.)