Germans, Ukrainians and Jews: Ethnic politics in Heeresgebiet Süd June-December 1941

War in History

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 325-351

  Anderson, Truman O ^a  

^a Stuart Family Foundation   (United States)

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EID: 61149570772     PISSN: 09683445     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/096834450000700304     Document Type: Review

References (60)

1. The best example of this revisionism is the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt's series, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (hereafter DRZW). See in particular vol. 4, H. Boog et al., Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion (Stuttgart, 1983)
2. Of special importance in this volume are two essays by J. Forster: 'Das Unternehmen "Barbarossa" als Eroberungs- und Vernichtungskrieg', pp. 413-50
3. and 'Die Sicherung des "Lebensraumes"', pp. 1030-78
4. see also T. Schulte, The German Army and Nazi Politics in Occupied Russia (Oxford, 1989)
5. W. Deist, ed., The German Military in the Age of Total War (Leamington Spa, 1985)
6. M. Messerschmidt, 'Der Kampf der Wehrmacht im Osten als Traditionsproblem', in G. Ueberschär and W. Wette, eds, Unternehmen Barbarossa: Der deutsche Überfall auf die Sowjetunion 1941 (Paderborn, 1984)
7. C. Browning, 'Wehrmacht Reprisal Policy and the Mass-Murder of Jews in Serbia', Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 33 (1983), pp. 31-7
8. H. Krausnick and H. Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges (Stuttgart, 1981)
9. A. Streim, Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriesgefangener im Fall 'Barbarossa': Eine Documentation (Heidelberg, 1981)
10. G. Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Soiajetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945 (Stuttgart, 1978)
11. H.-A. Jacobsen, 'Kommissarbefehl und Massenexecutionen sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener', in H. Buchheim, ed., Anatomie des SS-Staates (Olten, 1965)
12. S. Datner, Crimes against POWs: Responsibility of the Wehrmacht (Warsaw, 1964)
13. R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1961). For examples of more recent work which conforms with this consensus
14. see R.-D. Müller and H.-E. Volkmann, eds., Die Wehrmacht: Mythos und Realität, (Munich, 1999). This massive collection of essays includes more than a dozen articles dealing with the ideological radicalization of the Wehrmacht. Müller's introductory essay offers a good overview of the current state of research. For a recent critical bibliography
15. see R.-D. Müller and G. Ueberschär, Hitler's War in the East, 1941-1945: A Critical Assessment (New York, 1997)
16. Ueberschär's essay, "The Ideologically Motivated War of Annihilation in the East' (pp. 209-82), is especially helpful
17. British and American military historians did much to spread the view that the Wehrmacht remained true to its conservative sense of mission under the Nazi regime. See e.g., B.H. Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill (New York, 1948) and The Rommel Papers (New York, 1953). Exculpatory memoirs by former Wehrmacht generals also enjoyed wide circulation, e.g. Erich von Manstein's Verlorene Siege (Bonn, 1955) and Heinz Guderian's Errinerungen eines Soldaien (Heidelberg, 1951)
18. See e.g., Streim, Behandlung, on the high mortality among Soviet prisoners of war; J. Förster on Soviet escalation of the partisan war in DRZW, vol. 4, p. 1036
19. for conflict over the use of indigenous troops, see T. Mulligan, The Politics of Illusion and Empire: German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1942-1943 (New York, 1988)
20. regarding combined structural and ideological impact of economic policy, see B. Wegner's discussion of the partisan war in 1942 in vol. 6 of DRZW, H. Boog et al; Der globale Krieg: die Ausmeitung zum Weltkrieg und der Wechsel der Initiative 1941-1943 (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 911-26
21. also H. Umbreit on the German occupation system in DRZW vol. 5, pt 1, B. Kroener et al; Organisation und Mobilisierung des deutschen Macktbereichs, Halbband I: Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und personelle Ressourcen 1939-1941 (Stuttgart, 1988), pp. 77-94
22. O. Bartov, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (London, 1992)
23. H. Heer and K. Naumann, eds, Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944 (Hamburg, 1995)
24. H. Heer, 'Die Logik des Vernichtungskrieges: Wehrmacht und Partisanenkampf, in Heer and Naumann, Vernichtungskrieg, pp. 104-56
25. See e.g. A. Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945: A Study in Occupation Politics, 2nd edn (London, 1981)
26. Mulligan, Politics of Illusion, p. 12. According to army chief of staff Haider's diaries, Hitler voiced an intention to create a Ukrainian state on 22 July 1940
27. See F. Haider, Generaloberst Haider Kriegstagebuch (3 vols, Stuttgart, 1962-64) II, pp. 31-4
28. the diary of the OKW Wehrmacht Führungsstab notes that Hitler called for the creation of Ukrainian, White Russian and Baltic buffer-states in a meeting with OKW and OKH staff members on 5 Dec. 1940
29. See P. Schramm, ed., Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, 1940-1945 (4 vols, Frankfurt a.M., 1961-65) I, pp. 203-55
30. and Haider, Kriegstagebuck II, pp. 335-7
31. Dallin, German Ride, pp. 226-52. For examples of continued hierarchical thinking on the part of the military
32. There is little recent English-language literature on the relationship between Ukrainian nationalist groups and the Reich. The most authoritative study remains J. Armstrong's Ukrainian Nationalism (New York, 1963). Most of the remaining literature is based on Armstrong's monograph
33. including E. Hesse, Der Sowjetische Partisanenkrieg 1941-1944 im Spiegel deutscher Kampfanweisungen und Befehle (Göttingen, 1969), pp. 152-8
34. Dallin, German Rule in Russia, pp. 107-119, 620-25
35. G. Reitlinger, The House Built on Sand (Westport, CT, 1975), pp. 160-70, 244-9
36. Less beholden to Armstrong is some of the work by western historians of Ukrainian heritage, though one must be wary of the nationalist bent of some of these sources: M. Yurkevich, 'Galician Ukrainians in German Military Formations and in the German Administration', in Y. Boshyk, ed., Ukraine during World War II (Edmonton, 1986), pp. 67-73
37. W. Kosyk, Das Dritte Reich und die vkrainische Frage: Dokumente 1934-1944 (Munich, 1985). Kosyk, for example, does not mention the ties between OUN and the Abwehr prior to 'Barbarossa' in his overview (pp. 7-34), though two of the documents in the collection deal with Canaris's cultivation of the group. For more general information about Ukrainian collaboration
38. see R. Torzecki, 'Die Rolle der Zusammenarbeit mit der deutschen Besatzungsmacht in der Ukraine fur deren Okkupationspolitik 1941 bis 1944', in Deutsches Bundesarchiv, Europa unterm Hakenkrevz: Okkupation und Kollaboration 1938-1945 (Berlin, 1994)
39. (Gapt.) Prof. Hans Koch was Rosenberg's liaison officer with the staff of Army Group South. He was at this time temporarily attached to von Roques's staff. For more information on Koch and his involvement with Ukrainian nationalist organizations, see Dallin, German Rule, pp. 119-122
40. R. Torzecki, 'Die Rolle der Zusammenarbeit', in Röhr, Europa unterm Hakenkrevz, pp. 244-7
41. For von Roques's high opinion of Koch, see K. v. Roques, General der Infanterie. Befehlshaber des rückw. Heeresgebietes Süd, 'Was ich in den ersten 4 Monaten des Ostfeldzuges in Sowjet-Russland erlebt habe'. Document dated simply 'im Novbr. 1941'. BA-MA N152/10
42. Sheila Fitzpatrick's work on the Soviet peasantry after collectivization confirms the impression of widespread rural hostility towards the Soviet regime gained from German records. Using NKVD reports, Fitzpatrick has demonstrated not only that the peasantry remained unreconstructed by the experience of collectivization, but also that some peasants saw conquest by a foreign army as their ultimate hope of salvation from the communist system. This hope was sometimes manifested in open speculation as to whether it would be advantageous to be listed as a (religious) believer on the 1937 census if the records were to fall into the hands of the invading Germans or Poles, or in fantastic rumours that the country was at war (with the Poles or even the Japanese!), and that the government in Moscow was keeping the war a secret from the people in order to prevent insurrection. Though Fitzpatrick's work focuses on Russian and Belorussian peasants, it seems reasonable to assume that the level of resentment in the Ukraine was at least comparable. See S. Fitzpatrick, Stalin's Peasants: Subaltern Strategies in the Russian Village after Collectivization (Oxford, 1993)
43. For the GFP report, see (Abschrift) Geh. Feldpolizeigruppe 711 7.7.41 Betr: Wahrnehmungen über die bolschewistischen Blutaten in Lemberg, BA-MA RH26-454/6b. Feldpolizei Kommissar Färber, author of this report, claimed that fewer than 1 per cent of the estimated 3500 victims were Jewish (these he presumed were Zionists). He added that L'viv's Jews had 'showed themselves an especially pliable tool of the GPU' during the Soviet occupation through their willingness to denounce political suspects. According to Joachim Hoffmann (who cites estimates from Ukrainian émigré organizations), similar massacres occurred in Stanislav, Tamopil, Rivne, Luk (where the Heeresgebiet had its headquarters prior to moving to Lemberg), Sambir, Dubno, Sarny, Dobromyl' and Drohobych. See J. Hoffmann, 'Die Kriegführung aus der Sicht des Sowjetunion', in DRZW vol. 4, p. 918. For information about the killings by Einsatzgruppe C
44. see Krausnick and Wilhelm, Truppe, pp. 186-7. In a letter to the Vatican from Nov. 1941, the Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan, Andrei Sheptytsky, estimated that roughly 400000 Galician Ukrainians had been killed, gaoled or deported during the Soviet occupation of 1939-41. The Polish government-in-exile in London put the total population loss for Sovietoccupied Poland at roughly 1.5 million people for the same period
45. See O. Subtlny, 'Soviet Occupation of Western Ukraine', in Boshyk, Ukraine during World War II, p. 11
46. Kdr. Pz. Gr. 4 la Nr. 20/41 g.Kdos. vom 2.5.1941, Aufmarsch und Kampfanweisung 'Barbarossa' (Studie), Anl. 2: Kampffuhrung, BA-MA LVI A.K., 17956/7a, cited in J. Förster, 'Untemehmen Barbarossa', in DRZW vol. 4, p. 446
47. For an excellent recent overview of the state of the Soviet partisan movement in this phase of the war, see K. Slepyan, "The People's Avengers: Soviet Partisans, Stalinist Society and the Politics of Resistance, 1941-1944' (doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1994), pp. 28-36
48. A new book by Leonid Grenkvich provides an exhaustive bibliography of the existing English-language and Soviet historiography of the partisan war, but offers little in the way of fresh research. See L. Grenkevich, The Souiet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944 (London, 1999)
49. Shishaki Raikom Kompartii Ukrainy, Pokazanie ob'iasnitel'nye zapiski i drugie dokumenty... DAPO 105/1/357. For a published account apparently based upon these sources, see P.N. Iemets' and O.P. Samoilenko, Poltaushchyna u roky Velykoi Vitckyznianoi viiny (Kharkiv, 1965), pp. 28-35
50. see G. Best, Humanity in Warfare (New York, 1980)
51. For detailed exploration of the issue with specific reference to Germany and the Second World War (including postwar trials and the subsequent development of international law), see Anderson, 'Conduct of Reprisals', pp. 28-89
52. This ratio was specified in an order drafted by Gen Keitel of OKW on 16 Sept. 1941. It was motivated by increased guerrilla activity in Serbia, but was disseminated on the Eastern Front as well. There is no copy of the order in the records of Heeresgebiet Süd, nor did von Roques or any of the security division commanders pass on such an order. For background on the order, see R. Fattig, 'Reprisal: The German Army and the Execution of Hostages during the Second World War' (doctoral dissertation, University of California at San Diego, 1980)
53. W. Manoschek, Serbien ist Judemfrei (Munich, 1993)
54. Browning, 'Wehrmacht Reprisal Policy'
55. B. Boll and H. Safrian, 'Auf dem Weg nach Stalingrad', in Heer and Naumann, Vernichtungskrieg, pp. 279-80
56. E. Wiehn, ed., Die Sckoah von Babij Jar: Das Massaker deutscher Sonderkommandos an der jüdischen Bevolherung von Kiew 1941 fünjzig Jahre danach zum Gedenken (Konstanz, 1991)
57. Streit, Keine Kameraden, p. 100
58. Bfh. rückw. H. Geb. Süd Az. III Tgb. Nr. 3/41 geh., 1.9.41, Nuremberg document number NOKW-2594, cited in Förster, 'Die Sicherung des Lebensraumes', in DRZW vol. 4, p. 1048
59. T. Anderson, 'Incident at Baranivka: German Reprisals and the Soviet Partisan Movement in Ukraine, October-December 1941', Journal of Modem History (forthcoming)
60. 'Die 62. Infanterie-Division. Repressalien in Heeresgebiet Süd, Oktober bis Dezember 1941', in Heer and Naumann, Vernichtungskrieg, pp. 297-322