The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia During World War II

458 Pages·2011·1.269 MB·English

by  Leonid Rein, Leonid Rein

T K P
HE INGS AND THE AWNS
Studies on War and Genocide
General Editors:Omer Bartov, Brown University; A. Dirk
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Edited by Gerald D. Feldman Collaboration in Byelorussia
and Wolfgang Seibel during World War II
Leonid Rein
T K P
HE INGS AND THE AWNS
Collaboration in Byelorussia
during World War II
Leonid Rein

Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
Published in 2011 by
Berghahn Books
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©2011 Leonid Rein
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ISBN: 978-1-84545-776-1 (hardback)
E-ISBN: 978-0-85745-043-2
“The local self-administration has the sole task, to execute the orders
of the responsible German offices”
from the Report of Major Oskar W. Müller, the liaison officer of the
Reich’s Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories by the
Commanding General of the Security Troops and Commander of the
Army Area “Center” to the political department of the Ministry for
the Occupied Eastern Territories, 8 October1942
“[T]he leaders of our homeland, Byelorussia, should themselves be
Byelorussians. We’ve had enough of asking for German permission or
bribing them with fat, vodka, and whores until we Byelorussians
cannot find our own truth. The memorandum must bring to the
forefront the question of transferring authority to Byelorussians
everywhere and in all sectors, to the police, and to all Byelorussian
institutions…”
Radaslauˇ Astrouˇski at the meeting of the Baranoviãi city
administration, end of 1943

C
ONTENTS
R
Abbreviations xi
Preface xvii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1:Collaboration in Occupied Europe:
Theoretical Overview 11
Defining the Collaboration 11
Comparative Overview 18
The Background 18
The Nazi Attitude toward Collaboration 22
The Collaboration and Collaborators 28
Economic Collaboration 34
Police Collaboration 37
Collaboration in the Persecution of Jews 40
Military Collaboration 46

Chapter 2:Historical Background 57
General Information 57
Byelorussia between Two World Wars 59
“Reunification” of Byelorussia 69
The Outbreak of the War 72

Chapter 3:German Policies in Byelorussia (1941–1944) 83
The Eastern Policies of the Third Reich 83
Hitler’s Vision of the East 84
The Ostministerium and the Eastern Policy 86
The Wehrmacht and the East 87
German Visions of Byelorussia 88
Germans and Byelorussian Nationalists on the Eve
of the Nazi Invasion into the USSR 93
viii Contents
The Nazi Regime in Byelorussia: From Invasion to
Occupation 98
Local Self-Administration and Occupation 100
Agricultural Policies of the German Occupier 107
Labor Policies under German Occupation 110
The Outcome and Shift in Occupation Politics 116
Chapter 4:Byelorussian “State-Building”: Political Collaboration
in Byelorussia 129
“Local Self-Administration” 130
The Byelorussian Popular Self-Aid Organization 143
The Union of Byelorussian Youth (SBM) 152
The Byelorussian Central Council 166
Chapter 5: The Cross and the Hooked Cross: The Church’s
Collaboration in Occupied Byelorussia 191
Background 191
Rosenberg’s Influence 195
From Theory to Practice 198
Chapter 6: Ideological Collaboration in Byelorussia: The “Legal”
Press as a Propagandist Tool of the Nazis’ “New Europe” 227
Chapter 7: Collaboration in the Politics of Repression 253
Collaboration in the Holocaust 254
The Extermination Process in Byelorussia 256
Local Attitudes toward the Persecution of Jews 263
Misappropriation of Jewish Property as a Form of Collaboration 273
The Collaboration in a War against “Undesirable Elements” 277
Collaboration in the “Anti-Partisan Operations” 277
“Autonomous District Lokot” and Anti-Guerilla Warfare in
Western Russia and Eastern Byelorussia 287

Cossacks and Anti-Partisan Fighting in Byelorussia 290
Local Collaboration in Anti-Partisan Fighting in
Generalkommissariat Weißruthenien: Byelorussian
Self-Defense Corps 294
Defensive and Auxiliary Police Villages 297
Terror as a Means of Anti-Guerilla Fighting 300
Against the Strangers 302
Collaboration in the Anti-Polish Campaign in Byelorussia 303

Chapter 8: Military-Police Collaboration in Byelorussia 325

The Beginnings 325
Local Auxiliary Security Forces: Strength, Structure
and the German Attitude 328
Dogmatism vs. Reality: Byelorussian “Self-Defense” and
the “Home Guard” 350
Strange Allies: Armija Krajowa and Germans 358
“Untermenschen” in SS Uniforms 364
Contents ix
Summary 391
Appendix: SS and Military Ranks 405
Glossary 407
Bibliography 411
Index of Places 423
Index of Persons 429