German-occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1938–1945 | |||||||
Anthem: 1938–1945 " Das Lied der Deutschen" "The song of the Germans" | |||||||
Capital | Reich Commissioner | | |||||
• 1938–1945 | Fritz Katzmann | ||||||
Reichsstatthalter | |||||||
• 1938–1945 | Adolf Eichmann | ||||||
• 1940–1945 | Heinrich Himmler | ||||||
• 1941–1945 | Hermann Göring | ||||||
Historical era | Interwar period | ||||||
Area | |||||||
1942 | 3,300,000[1] km2 (1,300,000 sq mi) | ||||||
Population | |||||||
• 1942 | 238,000,000[1] | ||||||
Currency | Reichsmark (ℛℳ) | ||||||
|
German-occupied Europe (or Nazi-occupied Europe) refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet governments, by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during World War II, administered by the Nazi regime under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.[2]
The German Wehrmacht occupied European territory:
- as far east as the town of Mozdok in the North Caucasus in the Soviet Union (1942–1943)
- as far north as the settlement of Barentsburg in Svalbard in the Kingdom of Norway
- as far south as the island of Gavdos in the Kingdom of Greece
- as far west as the island of Ushant in the French Republic
In 1941, around 280 million people in Europe, more than half the population, were governed by Germany or their allies and puppet states.[3] It comprised an area of 3,300,000 km2 (1,300,000 sq mi).[1]
Outside of Europe,
History
Several German-occupied countries initially entered
Concentration camps
Part of German-occupied Europe | |
---|---|
forced labor |
Germany operated thousands of concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Following the 1934 purge of the SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", "asocials", and Jews.
After the beginning of World War II, people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least 4.7 million Soviet prisoners who were registered as of January 1945.
Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the death marches.
After the expansion of Nazi Germany, people from countries occupied by the Wehrmacht were targeted and detained in concentration camps. In Western Europe, arrests focused on resistance fighters and saboteurs, but in Eastern Europe arrests included mass roundups aimed at the implementation of Nazi population policy and the forced recruitment of workers. This led to a predominance of Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, who made up the majority of the population of some camps. The ethnicities of captured people were various other groups from other different nationalities were transferred to Auschwitz or sent to local concentration camps.
Occupied countries
The countries occupied included all, or most, of the following nations or territories:
Governments in exile
Allied governments in exile
Axis governments in exile
Government in exile | Capital in exile | Timeline of exile | Occupier(s) |
---|---|---|---|
Kingdom of Bulgaria | Vienna, Greater German Reich | September 16, 1944 – May 10, 1945 | Kingdom of Bulgaria |
French State | Sigmaringen, Greater German Reich | 1944 – April 22, 1945 | Provisional Government of the French Republic |
Kingdom of Hungary | Vienna, Greater German Reich
|
March 28/29, 1945 – May 7, 1945 | Czechoslovak Republic
Kingdom of Hungary Kingdom of Romania Kingdom of Yugoslavia |
Kingdom of Romania | Vienna, Greater German Reich | 1944–1945 | Kingdom of Romania |
Montenegrin State Council
|
Zagreb, Independent State of Croatia | Summer of 1944 – May 8, 1945 | Kingdom of Yugoslavia |
Slovak Republic | Kremsmünster, Great-German Reich | April 4, 1945 – 8 May 1945 | Czechoslovak Republic |
Government of National Salvation | Kitzbühel, Great-German Reich | October 7, 1944 - 8 May 1945 | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
|
Neutral governments in exile
Government in exile | Capital in exile | Timeline of exile | Occupier(s) |
---|---|---|---|
Belarusian Democratic Republic | Prague, Czechoslovak Republic (1923–1938) Prague, Czecho-Slovak Republic Prague, German Reich/Greater German Reich |
1919 – present | German Reich/Greater German Reich Realm Commissariat East |
Republic of Estonia | Kingdom of Sweden (1944 – August 20, 1991)
|
June 17, 1940 – August 20, 1991 | Realm Commissariat East
|
Ukrainian People's Republic | Warsaw, Republic of Poland (1920–1939) Prague, German Reich/Greater German Reich |
1920 – August 22, 1992 | German Reich/Greater German Reich Kingdom of Hungary |
See also
- Areas annexed by Germany
- Underground media in German-occupied Europe
- Drang nach Osten ("The Drive Eastward")
- Greater Germanic Reich
- Lebensraum ("Living Space")
- Neuordnung ("New Order")
- Pan-Germanism
Notes
- ^ Including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the General Government
References
- ^ ISBN 9781107136427.
- ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica, German occupied Europe. World War II. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from the Internet Archive.
- ^ "WWII: population of Germany and occupied areas 1941". Statista. Archived from the original on February 7, 2023. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
- ISBN 9780521483858.
- ISBN 9780465054923.
- ISBN 9781136328329.
- ISBN 9781782389910.
- ISBN 9780465093199.
- ISBN 9780823233434.
Bibliography
- Bank, Jan. Churches and Religion in the Second World War (Occupation in Europe) (2016).
- Gildea, Robert and Olivier Wieviorka. Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe (2007).
- Klemann, Hein A.M. and Sergei Kudryashov, eds. Occupied Economies: An Economic History of Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1939–1945 (2011).
- Lagrou, Pieter. The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945–1965 (1999).
- ISBN 9780713996814.
- Scheck, Raffael; Fabien Théofilakis; and Julia S. Torrie, eds. German-occupied Europe in the Second World War (Routledge, 2019), 276 pp. online review.
- Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), on Eastern Europe.
- Toynbee, Arnold, ed. Survey of International Affairs, 1939–1946: Hitler's Europe (Oxford University Press, 1954), 730 pp. online review; full text online free.
Primary sources
- Carlyle Margaret, ed. Documents on International Affairs, 1939–1946. Volume II, Hitler's Europe (Oxford University Press, 1954), 362 pp.