How life was in Ukraine during the years of occupation by Nazi Germany

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

After the seizure of the territory of Ukraine by Hitlerite Germany, millions of its citizens ended up in the zone of occupation. They actually had to live in a new state. The occupied territories were perceived as a raw material base, and the population as a cheap labor force.

Occupation of Ukraine

The capture of Kiev and the occupation of Ukraine were the most important goals of the Wehrmacht at the first stage of the war. The Kiev Cauldron has become the largest encirclement in world military history.

In the encirclement organized by the Germans, an entire front, the South-West, was lost.

Four armies were completely destroyed (5th, 21st, 26th, 37th), 38th and 40th armies were partially defeated.

According to the official data of Nazi Germany, which were published on September 27, 1941, 665,000 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army were taken prisoner in the "Kiev Cauldron", 3,718 guns and 884 tanks were captured.

Until the last moment, Stalin did not want to leave Kiev, although, according to the memoirs of Georgy Zhukov, he warned the commander-in-chief that the city must be left on July 29th.

Historian Anatoly Tchaikovsky also wrote that the losses of Kiev, and above all of the armed forces, would be much smaller if the decision to retreat the troops was made in time. However, it was the long-term defense of Kiev that delayed the German offensive by 70 days, which was one of the factors that influenced the failure of the blitzkrieg and gave time to prepare for the defense of Moscow.

After the occupation

Immediately after the occupation of Kiev, the Germans announced the compulsory registration of residents. It should have passed in less than a week, in five days. Problems with food and light began immediately. The population of Kiev, which was in the occupation, could survive only thanks to the markets located on Evbaz, on Lvovskaya square, on Lukyanovka and on Podol.

The shops only served Germans. The prices were very high and the quality of the food was terrible.

A curfew was imposed in the city. From 6 pm to 5 am it was forbidden to go outside. However, the Operetta Theater, puppet and opera theaters, the Conservatory, the Ukrainian Choir Chapel continued to operate in Kiev.

In 1943, two art exhibitions were even held in Kiev, at which 216 artists exhibited their works. Most of the paintings were bought by Germans. Sports events were also held.

Propaganda agencies also actively worked on the territory of occupied Ukraine. The invaders published 190 newspapers with a total circulation of 1 million copies, radio stations and a cinema network worked.

Partition of Ukraine

On July 17, 1941, on the basis of Hitler's order "On civil administration in the occupied eastern regions" under the leadership of Alfred Rosenberg, the "Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories" was created. Its tasks included the division of the occupied territories into zones and control over them.

According to Rosenberg's plans, Ukraine was divided into "zones of influence".

Lvov, Drohobych, Stanislav and Ternopil regions (without the northern districts) formed the "Galicia district", which was subordinate to the so-called Polish (Warsaw) General Government.

Rivne, Volynsk, Kamenets-Podolsk, Zhitomir, northern regions of Ternopil, northern regions of Vinnitsa, eastern regions of Mykolaiv, Kiev, Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk regions, northern regions of Crimea and southern regions of Belarus formed the “Reichskommissariat Ukraine”. The city of Rivne became the center.

The eastern regions of Ukraine (Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donbass) to the coast of the Sea of Azov, as well as the south of the Crimean peninsula were subordinate to the military administration.

The lands of Odessa, Chernivtsi, southern regions of Vinnitsa and western regions of Nikolaev regions formed a new Romanian province "Transnistria". Transcarpathia from 1939 remained under the rule of Hungary.

Reichskommissariat Ukraine

On August 20, 1941, by a decree of Hitler, the Reichskommissariat Ukraine was established as an administrative unit of the Greater German Reich. It included the captured Ukrainian territories minus the districts of Galicia, Transnistria and Northern Bukovina and Tavria (Crimea), annexed by Germany for future German colonization as Gotia (Gotengau).

In the future, the Reichskommissariat Ukraine was to cover the Russian regions: Kursk, Voronezh, Oryol, Rostov, Tambov, Saratov and Stalingrad.

Instead of Kiev, the capital of the Reichkommissariat Ukraine became a small regional center in Western Ukraine - the city of Rivne.

Erik Koch was appointed Reichskommissar, who from the first days of his power began to conduct an extremely tough policy, not restraining himself either in means or in terms. He said bluntly: “I need a Pole to kill a Ukrainian when he meets a Ukrainian and, conversely, a Ukrainian to kill a Pole. We don't need Russians, Ukrainians or Poles. We need fertile land."

Order

First of all, the Germans in the occupied territories began to impose their new order. All residents had to register with the police, they were strictly forbidden to leave their place of residence without written permission from the administration.

Violation of any regulation, for example, the use of a well from which the Germans took water, could lead to severe punishment, up to the death penalty by hanging.

The occupied territories did not have a unified civil administration and unified administration. In cities, councils were created, in rural areas - commandant's offices. All power in the districts (volosts) belonged to the corresponding military commandants. In the volosts, foremen (burgomasters) were appointed, in villages and villages - elders. All former Soviet bodies were disbanded, public organizations were banned. Order in rural areas was ensured by the police, in large settlements - by SS units and security units.

At first, the Germans announced that taxes for residents of the occupied territories would be lower than under the Soviet regime, but in fact they added tax levies on doors, windows, dogs, excess furniture and even on a beard. According to one of the women who survived the occupation, many then existed according to the principle "one day lived - and thank God."

The curfew was in effect not only in cities, but also in rural areas. For his violation, they were shot on the spot.

Shops, restaurants, hairdressers were served only by the occupation troops. Residents of cities were forbidden to use railway and city transport, electricity, telegraph, mail, pharmacy. At every step one could see an announcement: "Only for Germans", "Ukrainians are not allowed to enter."

Raw material base

The occupied Ukrainian territories were primarily supposed to serve as a raw material and food base for Germany, and the population as a cheap labor force. Therefore, the leadership of the Third Reich, whenever possible, demanded that agriculture and industry be preserved here, which were of great interest to the German war economy.

As of March 1943, 5950 thousand tons of wheat, 1372 thousand tons of potatoes, 2120 thousand heads of cattle, 49 thousand tons of butter, 220 thousand tons of sugar, 400 thousand heads of pigs, 406 thousand sheep were exported to Germany from Ukraine … As of March 1944, these figures already had the following indicators: 9, 2 million tons of grain, 622 thousand tons of meat and millions of tons of other industrial products and foodstuffs.

However, far less agricultural products from Ukraine came to Germany than the Germans had expected, and their attempts to revive the Donbass, Krivoy Rog and other industrial areas ended in a complete fiasco.

The Germans even had to send coal to Ukraine from Germany.

In addition to the resistance of the local population, the Germans faced another problem - a lack of equipment and skilled labor.

According to German statistics, the total value of all products (except agricultural) sent to Germany from the east (that is, from all the occupied regions of Soviet territory, and not only from Ukraine) amounted to 725 million marks. On the other hand, 535 million marks of coal and equipment were exported from Germany to the east; thus, the net profit was only 190 million marks.

According to Dallin's calculations, based on official German statistics, even together with agricultural supplies, "the contributions received by the Reich from the occupied eastern territories … amounted to only one-seventh of what the Reich received during the war from France."

Resistance and partisans

Despite the "draconian measures" (Keitel's expression) in the occupied Ukrainian territories, the resistance movement continued to function there throughout the years of the occupation regime.

In Ukraine, partisan formations operated under the command of Semyon Kovpak (made a raid from Putivl to the Carpathians), Aleksey Fedorov (Chernigov region), Alexander Saburov (Sumy region, Right-bank Ukraine), Mikhail Naumov (Sumy region).

Communist and Komsomol undergrounds operated in Ukrainian cities.

The actions of the partisans were coordinated with the actions of the Red Army. In 1943, during the Battle of Kursk, partisans carried out Operation Rail War. In the autumn of the same year, Operation Concert took place. Enemy communications were blown up and railways were put out of action.

To fight the partisans, the Germans formed yagdkomands (extermination or hunting teams) from the local population of the occupied territories, which were also called "false partisans", but the success of their actions was small. Desertion and desertion to the side of the Red Army were widespread in these formations.

Atrocities

According to the Russian historian Alexander Dyukov, "the cruelty of the occupation regime was such that, according to the most conservative estimates, every fifth of the seventy million Soviet citizens who were under occupation did not live to see Victory."

In the occupied territories, the Nazis killed millions of civilians, discovered almost 300 places of mass executions of the population, 180 concentration camps, over 400 ghettos. To prevent the Resistance movement, the Germans introduced a system of collective responsibility for an act of terror or sabotage. 50% of Jews and 50% of Ukrainians, Russians and other nationalities of the total number of hostages were subject to execution.

On the territory of Ukraine, during the occupation, 3, 9 million civilians were killed.

Babi Yar became the symbol of the Holocaust in Ukraine, where only on September 29-30, 1941, 33,771 Jews were exterminated. After that, for 103 weeks, the invaders carried out executions every Tuesday and Friday (the total number of victims was 150 thousand people).