Economic Organization East

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The economic organization East had about 20,000 employees one of the largest economic authorities of the German Reich in National Socialism . Their task was to exploit the territories occupied in the German-Soviet war . The main goal was to procure fuel and grain , to increase operational production, to use the civilian population as forced labor on site or to be deported to the Reich as eastern workers . The aim was to supply the Wehrmacht from the occupied country as much as possible, to increase war production and the German To feed the population.

founding

On February 19, 1941, Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring discussed how the occupation policy should be oriented in the planned war against the Soviet Union. The OKH's submission provided for a purely military administration, and economic issues were of little importance. On the other hand, there was a memorandum on the economic issues of operations in the East from the head of the Defense and Armaments Office , General Georg Thomas in the OKW .

Thomas was commissioned to develop the conceptual basis for the "Economic Organization East". It should bring together all civil economic departments of the occupation administration and also the corresponding departments of the Wehrmacht. In this way, under Göring's patronage, the previous extensive autonomy of the three armed forces was to be curtailed, and the competences of the Reich Ministry of Economics in the occupied area were to be limited. OKW and the four-year plan authority should establish a uniform economic administration with the involvement of industry. According to Thomas' organizational draft, the "main task of the organization was the collection of raw materials and the takeover of all important operations. For the last task, reliable personalities from German corporations would expediently be involved from the start, since successful work would only be possible with the help of their experience can be done (e.g. lignite, ore, chemicals, petroleum). "

The external organization of the economic administration should be built up during the fighting and be subordinate to the military.

The workforce of the Economic Organization East in the occupied territories of the USSR, which covered almost twice the size of the territory of the Reich, was more than 18,000 in November 1942, including 10,000 agricultural leaders and 8,000 soldiers and officers. In comparison, only 16,000 men were deployed in the German Reich and all other occupied territories to control the armaments and war economy.

Economic staff east

Göring approved the organizational scheme developed by Thomas on March 19, 1941. The governing body of the “Economic Organization East” was the “Economic Staff East”. It was headed by Lieutenant General Wilhelm Schubert (March 25, 1941 to June 30, 1942) and General Thomas (July 1 to August 2, 1942, acting). After Thomas resigned, it was led by General of the Infantry Otto Stapf (from August 3, 1942), who came under Keitel's command immediately .

The chief departments of Agriculture (La), Military (M) and Economy (W) formed the most important specialist departments of the Eastern Economic Staff. The main focus of the work was on the civil departments of agriculture and economics, which were largely directed by the relevant Reich authorities. The important chief group for agriculture was headed by the ministerial director in the Reich Ministry of Food, Hans-Joachim Riecke , party member since 1925 and group leader of the SA. Ministerial Director Gustav Schlotterer , one of the closest employees of Reich Minister of Economics Walther Funk , took over the chief economics group.

In order to better coordinate the economic measures, the department heads of the East Economic Staff had also been part of the East Ministry since autumn 1941 .

By 1943, most of the tasks and personnel of the OKW's Economic Armaments Office had gone to the Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition . What was left of it was renamed "Feldwirtschaftsstab" and merged with the Eastern Economic Organization on October 15, 1944.

External organization in the occupied areas

The Economic Organization East was subordinate to five economic inspectors (WiIn), which in turn led 23 economic commands and 12 branch offices in the occupied territory of the Soviet Union. The economic inspections in the army area were assigned to the army group commands.

The Eastern Economic Staff was not responsible for the "armaments inspections" established in the areas of civil administration ( Reichskommissariat Ostland , Reichskommissariat Ukraine ).

In their work, the economic commandos relied on the departments of Department IV Wi (Economy) at the field command offices and the army high command . The branch offices listed in the following graphic are planned operational limits of the economic inspections.

Wi Fü Bar East → Wi staff east → Wi inspections → Wi Kdos → Branch offices
→ → Murmansk → Arkhangelsk
North (Riga) → Petersburg → Vologda
→ Reval
→ Riga
→ Vilnius
Center (Moscow) → Gorky
→ Moscow → Rybinsk
→ Yaroslav
→ Tula → Bryansk
→ Minsk
South (Kiev) → Kharkov → Kursk
→ Voronezh
→ Stalingrad
→ Rostov-on-Don
→ Stalino
→ Kiev
→ Dnepropetrovsk → Kerch
→ Sevastopol
→ Odessa
→ Kishinev
→ Lviv
z. b. V. (Hesse) → e.g. b. V. → e.g. b. V.
→ e.g. b. V.
→ e.g. b. V. (Westphalia) → Grozny
→ Baku
→ Tbilisi → Batumi
→ Krasnodar

Abbreviations and symbols:
Wi Fü staff: economic management
staff Wi staff: economic staff
Wi Kdo: economic
command →: subordination

Commercial enterprise

A large number of private or semi-public Eastern companies were declared temporary trustees who were given monopolies for entire industries, including:

The long-standing Kontinentale Öl AG dealt with the oil wells on Soviet territory . In addition, a large number of trustees for individual companies have been appointed.

According to its own information, the ZO recorded 9.2 million tons of grain (including 0.2 million tons of pulses) with a turnover of 3 billion Reichsmarks by March 31, 1944, of which 5.7 million tons went to the Wehrmacht and 1 , 1 million tons to German offices and the local population.

Economic Management Staff East

The economic staff east was preceded by an "economic management staff" (WiFüStOst). Its task was to coordinate this authority with the authorities of the four-year plan through its management committee “Economic Staff East” .

The chairmanship of the WiFüStOst was the responsibility of Göring and his deputy, State Secretary Paul Körner from the office of Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan

General Wilhelm Schubert, 1941

In addition to Göring and Körner, the original permanent members were:

who were in charge of management and practical work, and who reported to Lieutenant General Wilhelm Schubert .

Soon afterwards, further permanent members of the WiFüStOst were added:

The so-called Green Map was created in the Eastern Economic Management Team , which contained all the essential economic data of the area to be conquered and the most important objectives for its economic exploitation.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Archives: Wirtschaftsstab Ost - Introduction , accessed on June 3, 1015.
  2. ↑ Doc. PS-1317, memo about the meeting with Thomas on February 28, 1941, from March 1, 1941, in: The Trial of Major War Criminals at the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, November 14, 1945 - October 1, 1946 (IMG), Vol. 27, Nuremberg 1948, p. 170; see also Dietrich Eichholtz: History of the German War Economy 1939–1945 . Volume 1, p. 233.
  3. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller (ed.): German economic policy in the occupied Soviet territories 1941–1943. The final report of the East Economic Staff and notes from a member of the Kiev Economic Command . Boldt, Boppard am Rhein, 1991, p. 2.
  4. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation . In: The German Reich and the Second World War . Edited by the Military History Research Office. Volume 4: The attack on the Soviet Union . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Deutsch-Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1983, pp. 98–189, here p. 131.
  5. ↑ For the data in the graphic see: The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Court, Nuremberg, November 14, 1945 - October 1, 1946 , Vol. 27, Nuremberg 1948, pp. 32–38, Doc. 1157-PS, discussion of the Defense Economics and Armaments Office via the Oldenburg economic staff, April 29, 1941; see. also Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation . In: The German Reich and the Second World War. Edited by the Military History Research Office . Volume 4: The attack on the Soviet Union , p. 135 (there graphic: The planned operational limits of the economic inspections. )
  6. ↑ Hans Umbreit: The German rule in the occupied territories 1942-1945 , in: Bernhard R. Kroener, Rolf-Dieter Müller, Hans Umbreit (eds.): The German Reich and the Second World War: Organization and mobilization of the German sphere of influence Volume 5 / 2: War administration, economy and human resources 1942 to 1944/45. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-06499-7 , p. 201.
  7. ↑ Alex J. Kay: Starving as a Strategy for Mass Murder. The meeting of the German State Secretaries on May 2, 1941 . In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte , 11th year (2010), issue 1, pp. 81–105, here p. 90.
  8. ↑ Kay: Let starvation as a strategy of mass murder , pp. 90–91 u. 100.

Web links

literature

  • Dietrich Eichholtz : History of the German War Economy 1939-1945 . Volume 1. (= reprint of the Berlin edition, Akademie-Verlag, 1969–1996, supplemented by a foreword and general register) KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11428-1 .
  • Alex J. Kay : Starving as a Strategy for Mass Murder. The meeting of the German State Secretaries on May 2, 1941 . In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte , Volume 11 (2010), Issue 1, pp. 81-105.
  • Bernhard R. Kroener , Rolf-Dieter Müller , Hans Umbreit: The German Reich and the Second World War : Organization and Mobilization of the German Area of ​​Power, Volume 5/1: War Administration, Economy and Human Resources 1939 to 1941. Ed .: Military History Research Office , German Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-421-06232-3 .
  • Bernhard R. Kroener, Rolf-Dieter Müller, Hans Umbreit: The German Reich and the Second World War: Organization and mobilization of the German sphere of influence Volume 5/2: War administration, economy and human resources 1942 to 1944/45. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-06499-7 .
  • Rolf-Dieter Müller (ed. And introduction): German economic policy in the occupied Soviet territories 1941-1943. The final report of the East Economic Staff and notes from a member of the Kiev Economic Command . Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein 1991, ISBN 3-7646-1905-8 .
  • Rolf-Dieter Müller: From the economic alliance to the colonial war of exploitation . In: The German Reich and the Second World War . Edited by the Military History Research Office. Volume 4: The attack on the Soviet Union . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-421-06098-3 , pp. 98–189, (here pp. 129–136: The Structure of the Economic Organization East. )
  • Norbert Müller: occupation, robbery, annihilation. Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1980, p. 49 f.