War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans PDF
Preview War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans
WAR IN THE WILD EAST WAR IN THE WILD EAST The German Army and Soviet Partisans BEN SHEPHERD harvard university press Cambridge,Massachusetts London,England 2004 Copyright©2004bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Shepherd,Ben(BenjaminV.) WarinthewildEast : theGermanArmyandSovietpartisans / BenShepherd. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-674-01296-8(alk.paper) 1.WorldWar,1939–1945—Destructionandpillage. 2.WorldWar, 1939–1945—Destructionandpillage—SovietUnion. 3.WorldWar, 1939–1945—Atrocities. 4.WorldWar,1939–1945—Atrocities— SovietUnion. 5.Germany.Heer.SecurityDivision,221st. 6.Germany.Heer—History—WorldWar,1939–1945. 7.Germany. Heer—Officers—Attitudes. 8.SovietUnion—History—German occupation,1941–1944. I.Title. D804.G4S49 2004 940.54′05′0947—dc22 2004047268 Contents Introduction:TowardaWarofExtermination 1 1 “SuccessComesOnlythroughTerror”:TheGerman ExperienceofAntiguerrillaWarfare 34 2 “Jew-Bolsheviks,”Civilians,andPartisans:The OpeningPhase,1941 58 3 BloodshedMushrooms:TheEscalatingSecurity Campaign,1941 84 4 TheRulesChange:PartisanSurgeandGerman Response,1942 108 5 MoreoftheSugar,LessoftheWhip:TheBattlefor PopularSupport,1942 129 6 LocustsinFieldGray:TheDeadZones Campaign,1943 166 7 FearintheForest:TheWaratCloseQuarters,1942 and1943 188 Conclusion:ReapasYouSow,1943and1944 219 AppendixA.LargerAntipartisanOperationsCarried Outbythe221stSecurityDivision,December1942– April1943 237 vi Contents AppendixB.AtrocitiesCommittedbythe221st SecurityDivision’sSubordinateUnits,March1942– August1943 240 Acknowledgments 243 AbbreviationsandTranslations 245 Notes 247 BibliographyofPrimarySources 295 Index 296 Mapsandphotographsfollowpage128 WAR IN THE WILD EAST Introduction toward a war of extermination TheGermanArmy,orWehrmacht,ofWorldWarIIenjoysarepu- tationasprobablythemostproficient,dogged,andeffectivefighting forceevertohavetakenthefieldofmoderncombat.1Atthepeakof its efficacy it combined the en masse assembly of first-rate man- power,trainedtomatchlessstandards,withathen-unchallengedex- pertiseinarmoredwarfare.Alongwiththedevastatinglyeffectiveair supportoftheGermanLuftwaffe,itachievedasequenceofsuccesses intheBlitzkriegcampaignsthatinthreeyearsachievedtheconquest ofalmosttheentirelandmassbetweenEgyptandtheArctic,thePyr- eneesandtheCaucasus. ThepinnacleoftheWehrmacht’striumphswereitssix-weekcon- quest of the Low Countries and France in spring 1940 and its sei- zure,inthefaceofmassivelogisticalproblemsandanumericallysu- perior enemy, of an enormous tract of European Russia during its eastern campaign of the second half of 1941. From 1943, with the vastsize,fearfulenvironmentalconditions,andseeminglyinexhaust- iblemanpoweroftheSovietUnionrangedagainstitintheeast,and the economic and military might of the United States increasingly beingbroughttobearintheAnglo-Americanwareffortinthewest, the Wehrmacht executed a fighting retreat of unparalleled tenacity lastinguptothefinalweeksofthewarin1945.Itisscarcelysurpris- ing that, even today, the ranks of Wehrmacht veterans, thinning by
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