Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
Encyclopedia
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
on July 1941 and headed by the Nazi theoretical expert and Baltic German, Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
. Alfred Meyer
Alfred Meyer
Dr. Alfred Meyer was a Nazi official, achieving the rank of Staatssekretär and Deputy Reichsminister in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories .-Early life:Meyer was born in Göttingen, the son of a government official...
was Rosenberg's deputy. This ministry was created to control the vast areas captured by the Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. It also played a part in supporting anti-soviet groups in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
.
In February 1942, under Rosenberg's plans, it tried to promulgate a program of land reform in the occupied territories in the USSR that included promises of decollectivization through abolition of kolkhozes and re-distribution of land to peasants for individual farming.
In practice, however, Rosenberg's authority was substantially undermined by the appointment of Erich Koch
Erich Koch
Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was the Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943...
to administer Ukraine
Reichskommissariat Ukraine
Reichskommissariat Ukraine , literally "Reich Commissariat of Ukraine", was the civilian occupation regime of much of German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. Between September 1941 and March 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Reichskommissar Erich Koch as a colony...
with orders from Hitler to be hard and brutal. Rosenberg wished to portray the Germans as liberators of Ukraine from Soviet domination, but Koch's brutality helped to push potential Ukrainian allies back to the Soviet camp. Furthermore, Rosenberg's ministry was denied authority over army and other security formations within the occupied territories. The other Reich Commissar, Heinrich Lohse (Ostland
Reichskommissariat Ostland
Reichskommissariat Ostland, literally "Reich Commissariat Eastland", was the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany in the Baltic states and much of Belarus during World War II. It was also known as Reichskommissariat Baltenland initially...
) was widely disregarded. The resulting power vacuum was filled by the SS who acted as they wished.
Two Reichskommissariat
Reichskommissariat
Reichskommissariat is the German designation for a type of administrative office headed by a government official known as a Reichskommissar...
s were established, for Ostland and Ukraine, and two more were planned, for Moscow and the Caucasus
Reichskommissariat Kaukasus
Reichskommissariat Kaukasus , literally "Reich Commissariat of the Caucasus ", was the theoretical political division and planned civilian occupation regime of Nazi Germany in the conquered territories of the Caucasus during World War II...
. The latter pair were not set up, as the war turned against Germany and their armies were forced out of the conquered territories.
See also
- "Decollectivization" under German occupation
- Foreign Armies EastForeign Armies EastForeign Armies East, or Fremde Heere Ost , was a German military intelligence organization that focused on analyzing the Soviet Union and other East European countries before and during the Second World War....
(Nazi intelligence service focusing on territory to the East) - Gerhard von MendeGerhard von MendeDr. Gerhard von Mende was a Baltic German who was head of the Caucasus division at the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territory, or Ostministerium, in Nazi Germany...