German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II
(Redirected from
Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany
)
The
Holocaust in Belarus.[3]
Background
The Soviet and Belarusian historiographies study the subject of German occupation in the context of contemporary Belarus, regarded as the
invaded Poland on 17 September 1939. More than 100,000 people of different ethnic backgrounds, mostly Poles and Jews in West Belarus, were imprisoned, executed or transported to the eastern USSR by Soviet authorities before the German invasion. The NKVD (Soviet secret police) killed more than 1,000 prisoners in June and July 1941, for example, in Chervyen
.
Invasion
After twenty months of Soviet rule in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine,
Axis allies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Eastern Belarus suffered particularly heavily during the fighting and German occupation. Following bloody encirclement battles, all of the present-day Belarus
territory was occupied by the Germans by the end of August 1941. With Poland regarding the Soviet annexation as illegal, the majority of Polish citizens did not ask for Soviet citizenship from 1939 to 1941, and as a result were Polish citizens under Soviet and later German occupation.
Occupation
Soviet POWs
captured near Minsk is marched westIn the early days of the occupation, a powerful and increasingly well-coordinated
Soviet partisan movement emerged. Hiding in the woods and swamps, the partisans inflicted heavy damage to German supply lines and communications, disrupting railway tracks, bridges, telegraph wires, attacking supply depots, fuel dumps and transports, and ambushing Axis soldiers. In one of the most successful partisan sabotage actions of the entire Second World War, the so-called Asipovichy diversion of 30 July 1943, four German trains with supplies and Tiger tanks were destroyed. To fight partisan activity, the Germans had to withdraw considerable forces behind their front line. On 22 June 1944, the huge Soviet Strategic Offensive Operation Bagration
was launched, finally regaining all of Belarus by the end of August.
War crimes
 | This section may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. (August 2016) |
The German invasion and occupation resulted in heavy human casualties, with some 380,000 people deported for slave labour, and the mass murder of hundreds of thousands more civilians. The ethnically
Khatyn had their entire population annihilated.[4]
A 2017 study found "that Soviet partisan attacks against German personnel provoked reprisals against civilians but that attacks against railroads had the opposite effect. Where partisans focused on disrupting German supply lines rather than killing Germans, occupying forces conducted fewer reprisals, burned fewer houses, and killed fewer people."[5]
Belarusian Central Rada
, Minsk, June 1943.
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski and Ordnungspolizei
, Minsk, ca. 1943
Mohylew
, March 1943.
Nazi units
- 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian)
- 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS RONA (1st Russian)
- 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Belarusian)
- 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Russian)
- 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS
- Einsatzgruppen
- Ukrainian Auxiliary Police
- Byelorussian Auxiliary Police
Notable Nazi personnel
- Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski
- Gustavs Celmiņš
- Oskar Dirlewanger
- Curt von Gottberg
- Konrāds Kalējs
- Bronislav Kaminski
- Wilhelm Kube
- Anthony Sawoniuk
- Karl Schäfer
- Jakob Sporrenberg
Other units and participants
Holocaust
The largest Jewish ghetto in
Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
article.
Post-occupation
Later in 1944, 30 German-trained Belarusians were airdropped behind the Soviet front line to spark disarray. These were known as "
Čorny Kot" ("Black Cat") led by Michał Vituška. They had some initial success due to disorganization in the rear guard of Red Army. Other Belarusian units slipped through Białowieża Forest and full scale guerilla war erupted in 1945. But the NKVD
infiltrated these units and neutralized them by the end of 1946.
In total, Belarus lost a quarter of its pre-war population in the Second World War, including practically all its intellectual elite. About 9,200 villages and 1,200,000 houses were destroyed. The major towns of
Hero-Fortress
.
See also
- Eastern Front (World War II)
- Khatyn massacre: slaughter of Belarus civilians
- Maly Trostenets extermination camp
- Military history of Belarus during World War II
- Operation Tempest
- Narodowe Siły Zbrojne
- Slutsk Affair
- Soviet partisan
- Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union
- Come and See
- Fortress of War
People
Notes
- ^ "The tragedy of Khatyn - Genocide policy". SMC Khatyn. 2005. Archived from the original on March 10, 2015.
- ^ Donovan, Jeffrey (May 4, 2005). "World War II -- 60 Years After: Legacy Still Casts Shadow Across Belarus". www.rferl.org. Retrieved March 21, 2024.
- ISBN 978-0-674-72660-4.
- ^ a b (in English) "Genocide policy". Khatyn.by. SMC "Khatyn". 2005. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2006.
- S2CID 41023436.
Further reading
- Beorn, Waitman Wade (2014). ISBN 978-0674725508.
- Exeler, Franziska. "What Did You Do during the War?" Kritika: Explorations in Russian & Eurasian History (Fall 2016) 17#4 pp 805–835; examines popular behaviour in Byelorussia under the Germans, using oral history, letters of complaint, memoirs and secret police and party reports.
- ISBN 3930908638.
- Marples, David R. (2014). "Our Glorious Past": Lukashenka's Belarus and the Great Patriotic War. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag. ISBN 9783838206752.
- Mulligan, Timothy Patrick (1988). The Politics of Illusion and Empire: German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1942-1943. New York: Praeger. ISBN 978-0275928377.
- Rein, Leonid (2013). The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II. New York: Berghahn. ISBN 978-1782380474.
- Slepyan, Kenneth (2006). Stalin's Guerrillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II. Lawrence, Kan.: Univ. Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0700614806.
- ISBN 978-0465031474.
- Tec, Nechama (2009). Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, The Story of the Largest Armed Resistance by Jews During World War II (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195376852.
External links
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