The Reichskommissariat Ukraine (RKU; ) was an administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. It served as the German civilian occupation regime in the Ukrainian SSR and parts of the Byelorussian SSR, Russian SFSR, and Eastern Poland during the Eastern Front of World War II.
Reichskommissariat Ukraine was established after early territory gains in Operation Barbarossa under the military administration of Army Group South Rear Area. The German civil administration was based in Rovno (Rivne). Erich Koch served as the only Reichskommissar during the administrative entity's existence.
Reichskommissariat Ukraine was part of the Generalplan Ost which included the forced displacement, enslavement, and genocide of the native Ukrainian population, the genocide of the land’s Jewish population, the settlement of Germanic peoples, and the Germanization of the rest. These goals were pursued by SS and their Einsatzgruppen, with active participation of the Order Police battalions and Ukrainian collaborators. Slavica Publishers.
It is estimated that 900,000 to 1.6 million Jews and 3 or 4 millionMichael Berenbaum (ed.), A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis, New York University Press, 1990; non-Jewish Ukrainians were killed during the occupation; other sources estimate that 5.2 million Ukrainian civilians (of all ethnic groups) perished due to crimes against humanity, war-related disease, and famine, amounting to more than 12% of Ukraine's population at the time.Vadim Erlikman. Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke: spravochnik. Moscow, 2004. . pp. 21–35.
In 1943 and 1944, the Red Army liberated most of territory of the Reichskommissariat in its advance westwards. Koch was appointed Reichskommissar of Reichskommissariat Ostland in August 1944. Reichskommissariat Ukraine was dissolved on 10 November 1944.
History
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union in breach of the mutual Treaty of Non-Aggression. In anticipation of the invasion, Adolf Hitler had tasked Alfred Rosenberg with preparing the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Ostministerium) to oversee administration of the Soviet territories conquered by the Wehrmacht.
On 17 July 1941, Hitler issued a Führer decree defining the administration of the newly-occupied Eastern territories.
On 20 August, Hitler established the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and appointed Erich Koch, the Gauleiter of East Prussia, as its Reichskommissar. On the same day, Hitler announced that the region would be under civil administration from noon on 1 September and delineated the boundaries of the region.Berkhoff, p. 36.
In the mind of Hitler and other German expansionists, the destruction of the Soviet Union, dubbed a "Judeo-Bolshevist" state, would remove a threat from Germany's eastern borders and allow for the colonization of the vast territories of Eastern Europe under the banner of Lebensraum for the fulfilment of the material needs of the Germanic people. Ideological declarations about the German Herrenvolk (master race) having a right to expand their territory especially in the East were widely spread among the German public and Nazi officials of various ranks. Later on, in 1943, Koch said about his mission: "We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here."
On 14 December 1941, Rosenberg discussed with Hitler various administrative issues regarding the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
On 28 July 1944, the Red Army occupied the last part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine in Brest, though it continued to exist as a legal entity. In August 1944, Koch was transferred to Reichskommissariat Ostland when its Reichskommissar Hinrich Lohse fled the territory without permission due to the Red Army advance. Reichskommissariat Ukraine was officially dissolved on 10 November 1944.
Geography The Reichskommissariat Ukraine excluded several parts of present-day Ukraine, and included some territories outside of its modern borders. It extended in the west from the Volhynia region around Lutsk, to a line from Vinnytsia to Mykolaiv along the Southern Bug river in the south, to the areas surrounding Kiev, Poltava and Zaporozhye in the east. Conquered territories further to the east, including the rest of Ukraine (Crimea, Chernigov, Kharkov, and the Donets Basin), were under military governance until the German withdrawal 1943–44.Berkhoff, pp. 299ff.
Eastern Galicia was transferred to the control of the General Government following a Hitler decree, becoming its fifth district (District of Galicia).
It also encompassed several southern parts of today's Belarus, including Polesia, a large area to the north of the Pripyat River with forests and marshes, as well as the city of Brest-Litovsk, and the towns of Pinsk and Mozyr.Berkhoff, Karel C. (2004). Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule, p. 37. President and Fellows of Harvard College. This was done by the Germans in order to secure a steady wood supply and efficient railroad and water transportation.
Administration Political figures related to the German administration of Ukraine
Alfred Rosenberg, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Georg Leibbrandt, Eastern Ministry Otto Bräutigam, Eastern Ministry Reichskommissar of Ukraine, Erich Koch Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Krim-Taurien Kurt Klemm, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Shitomir (October 1941 – October 1942) Ernst Ludwig Leyser, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Shitomir (October 1942 – September 1943) Helmut Quitzrau, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Kiew (September 1941 – February 1942) Waldemar Magunia, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Kiew (February 1942 – 1944) Ewald Oppermann, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Nikolajew Heinrich Schoene, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Wolhynien-Podolien (September 1941 – February 1944) Claus Selzner, Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Dnepropetrowsk (September 1941 – June 1944) Karl Stumpp, ethnographer and leader of the SS Sonderkommando Dr Karl Stumpp
Military commanders linked with the German administration of Ukraine
Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber Ukraine (WBU) Generalleutnant d.R. Waldemar Henrici (until October 1942) General der Flieger Karl Kitzinger (from October 1942) Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer Southern Russia (HSSPF Russland-Süd) SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln (June–October 1941) SS-Obergruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann (October 1941 – 1944; from October 1943 also Höchster SS- und Polizeiführer (HöSSPF) Ukraine) Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer Black Sea (HSSPF Schwarzes Meer) SS-Gruppenführer Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben (October–December 1943) SS-Obergruppenführer Richard Hildebrandt (December 1943 – August 1944) SS-Gruppenführer Adolf von Bomhard, head of police SS-Gruppenführer Walter Schimana, commander of the SS Division Galicia SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Freitag, commander of the SS Division Galicia
Administrative divisions
The administrative capital of the Reichskommissariat was Rovno, and it was divided into six Generalbezirke (general districts), called Generalkommissariate (general commissariats) in the pre-Barbarossa planning. This administrative structure was in turn subdivided into 114 Kreisgebiete, and further into 443 Parteien.
Each Generalbezirk was administered by a Generalkommissar; each Kreisgebiete "circular [i.e., district] area" was led by a Gebietskommissar and each Partei "party" was governed by a Ukrainian or German "Parteien Chef" (Party Chief). At the level below were German or Ukrainian Akademiker ("Academics" – i.e., District Chiefs) (similar to Polish "Wojts" in the General Government). At the same time at a smaller scale, the local Municipalities were administered by native "Bailiffs" and "Mayors", accompanied by respective German political advisers if needed. In the most important areas, or where a German Army detachment remained, the local administration was always led by a German; in less significant areas local personnel was in charge.
The six general districts were (English names and administrative centres in parentheses): Shitomir (Zhytomyr) – headed by Regierungpräsident Kurt Klemm, then by SS-Brigadeführer Ernst Ludwig Leyser (from 1942) Kiew (Kiev) – headed by SA-Brigadeführer Helmut Quitzrau (till February 14, 1942), then SA-Oberführer Waldemar Magunia (from February 14, 1942) Nikolajew (Nikolayev) – headed by NSFK-Obergruppenführer Ewald Oppermann Wolhynien und Podolien (Volhynia and Podolia; Luzk) – headed by SA Obergruppenführer Heinrich Schoene Dnjepropetrowsk (Dnepropetrovsk) – headed by Oberbefehlshaber der NSDAP ('party commander in chief') Claus Selzner Krym-Taurien (Crimea-Taurida; Melitopol) – headed by Gauleiter Alfred Frauenfeld
Scheduled for incorporation into the Reichskommissariat Ukraine but never transferred to civil administration were the Generalkommissariate Tschernigow (Chernigov), Charkow (Kharkov), Stalino (Donetsk), Woronezh (Voronezh), Rostow (Rostov-on-Don), Stalingrad, and Saratow (Saratov), which would have brought the boundary of the province to the western border of Kazakhstan.Dallin, Alexander (1958). Deutschen Herrschaft in Russland 1941–1945, p. 67 (in German). Droste. In addition, Reichskommissar Koch had wishes of further extending his Reichskommissariat to Ciscaucasia.Kroener, Müller & Umbreit (2003) Germany and the Second World War V/II, p. 50
Krym-Taurien
The administrative position of the Krim Generalbezirk remained ambiguous. According to the original German plan it was to correspond approximately to the old Taurida Governorate (therefore including also mainland portions of Ukraine), and was to consist of two Teilbezirke (sub-districts): Taurien (the mainland sections, including parts of the Nikolayev and Zaporozhye provinces.) Krym (the Crimean peninsula)
Only the first of these saw transfer to civil administration in September 1942, with the peninsula remaining under military control for the duration of the war. Its administrator, Frauenfeld, played off the military and civil authorities against each other and gained the freedom to run the territory as he saw fit. He thereby enjoyed complete autonomy, verging on independence, from Koch's authority. Frauenfeld's administration was much more moderate than Koch's and consequentially more economically successful. Koch was greatly angered by Frauenfeld's insubordination (a comparable situation also existed in the administrative relationship between the Estonian general commissariat and Reichskommissariat Ostland).
The district's title was a misnomer, it only included the area north of the Crimean peninsula up to the Dnieper river.Berkhoff, p. 39.
Demographics The official German press, in 1941, reported the Ukrainian urban and rural populations as 19 million each. During the commissariat's existence the Germans only undertook one official census, for January 1, 1943, documenting a population of 16,910,008 people.Berkhoff, pp. 36-37. The 1926 Soviet official census recorded the urban population as 5,373,553 and the rural population as 23,669,381 – a total of 29,042,934, however the borders of the administrative region of the Soviet Ukrainian SSR were noticeably different from those of the Reichskommissariat. In 1939, a new census reported the Ukrainian urban population as 11,195,620 and rural population as 19,764,601 – a total of 30,960,221. The Ukrainian Soviets counted 17% of total Soviet population, and a significant portion was also separately occupied by Romania.
Security