Table Of ContentT K P
HE INGS AND THE AWNS
Studies on War and Genocide
General Editors:Omer Bartov, Brown University; A. Dirk
Moses, University of Sydney
Volume 1 Volume 8
The Massacre in History Gray Zones: Ambiguity and
Edited by Mark Levene and Compromise in the Holocaust
Penny Roberts and Its Aftermath
Edited by Jonathan Petropou-
Volume 2
los and John K. Roth
National Socialist Extermina-
tion Policies: Contemporary Volume 9
German Perspectives and Con- Robbery and Restitution: The
troversies Conflict over Jewish Property
Edited by Ulrich Herbert in Europe
Edited by M. Dean, C. Goschler
Volume 3
and P. Ther
War of Extermination: The
German Military in World War Volume 10
II, 1941/44 Exploitation, Resettlement,
Edited by Hannes Heer and Mass Murder: Political and
Klaus Naumann Economic Planning for German
Occupation Policy in the Soviet
Volume 4
Union, 1940–1941
In God’s Name: Genocide and
Alex J. Kay
Religion in the Twentieth
Century Volume 12
Edited by Omer Bartov and Empire, Colony, Genocide: Con-
Phyllis Mack quest, Occupation and Subal-
tern Resistance in World
Volume 5 History
Hitler’s War in the East,
Edited by A. Dirk Moses
1941–1945
Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Volume 13
Ueberschär The Train Journey: Transit,
Captivity, and Witnessing in
Volume 6
the Holocaust
Genocide and Settler Society:
Simone Gigliotti
Frontier Violence and Stolen
Indigenous Children in Volume 14
Australian History The ‘Final Solution’ in Riga:
Edited by A. Dirk Moses Exploitation and Annihilation,
1941–1944
Volume 7
Networks of Nazi Persecution: Andrej Angrick and Peter Klein
Bureaucracy, Business, and the Volume 15
Organization of the Holocaust The Kings and the Pawns:
Edited by Gerald D. Feldman Collaboration in Byelorussia
and Wolfgang Seibel during World War II
Leonid Rein
T K P
HE INGS AND THE AWNS
Collaboration in Byelorussia
during World War II
Leonid Rein
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
Published in 2011 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
©2011 Leonid Rein
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper.
ISBN: 978-1-84545-776-1 (hardback)
E-ISBN: 978-0-85745-043-2
“The local self-administration has the sole task, to execute the orders
of the responsible German offices”
from the Report of Major Oskar W. Müller, the liaison officer of the
Reich’s Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories by the
Commanding General of the Security Troops and Commander of the
Army Area “Center” to the political department of the Ministry for
the Occupied Eastern Territories, 8 October1942
“[T]he leaders of our homeland, Byelorussia, should themselves be
Byelorussians. We’ve had enough of asking for German permission or
bribing them with fat, vodka, and whores until we Byelorussians
cannot find our own truth. The memorandum must bring to the
forefront the question of transferring authority to Byelorussians
everywhere and in all sectors, to the police, and to all Byelorussian
institutions…”
Radaslauˇ Astrouˇski at the meeting of the Baranoviãi city
administration, end of 1943
C
ONTENTS
R
Abbreviations xi
Preface xvii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1:Collaboration in Occupied Europe:
Theoretical Overview 11
Defining the Collaboration 11
Comparative Overview 18
The Background 18
The Nazi Attitude toward Collaboration 22
The Collaboration and Collaborators 28
Economic Collaboration 34
Police Collaboration 37
Collaboration in the Persecution of Jews 40
Military Collaboration 46
Chapter 2:Historical Background 57
General Information 57
Byelorussia between Two World Wars 59
“Reunification” of Byelorussia 69
The Outbreak of the War 72
Chapter 3:German Policies in Byelorussia (1941–1944) 83
The Eastern Policies of the Third Reich 83
Hitler’s Vision of the East 84
The Ostministerium and the Eastern Policy 86
The Wehrmacht and the East 87
German Visions of Byelorussia 88
Germans and Byelorussian Nationalists on the Eve
of the Nazi Invasion into the USSR 93
viii Contents
The Nazi Regime in Byelorussia: From Invasion to
Occupation 98
Local Self-Administration and Occupation 100
Agricultural Policies of the German Occupier 107
Labor Policies under German Occupation 110
The Outcome and Shift in Occupation Politics 116
Chapter 4:Byelorussian “State-Building”: Political Collaboration
in Byelorussia 129
“Local Self-Administration” 130
The Byelorussian Popular Self-Aid Organization 143
The Union of Byelorussian Youth (SBM) 152
The Byelorussian Central Council 166
Chapter 5: The Cross and the Hooked Cross: The Church’s
Collaboration in Occupied Byelorussia 191
Background 191
Rosenberg’s Influence 195
From Theory to Practice 198
Chapter 6: Ideological Collaboration in Byelorussia: The “Legal”
Press as a Propagandist Tool of the Nazis’ “New Europe” 227
Chapter 7: Collaboration in the Politics of Repression 253
Collaboration in the Holocaust 254
The Extermination Process in Byelorussia 256
Local Attitudes toward the Persecution of Jews 263
Misappropriation of Jewish Property as a Form of Collaboration 273
The Collaboration in a War against “Undesirable Elements” 277
Collaboration in the “Anti-Partisan Operations” 277
“Autonomous District Lokot” and Anti-Guerilla Warfare in
Western Russia and Eastern Byelorussia 287
Cossacks and Anti-Partisan Fighting in Byelorussia 290
Local Collaboration in Anti-Partisan Fighting in
Generalkommissariat Weißruthenien: Byelorussian
Self-Defense Corps 294
Defensive and Auxiliary Police Villages 297
Terror as a Means of Anti-Guerilla Fighting 300
Against the Strangers 302
Collaboration in the Anti-Polish Campaign in Byelorussia 303
Chapter 8: Military-Police Collaboration in Byelorussia 325
The Beginnings 325
Local Auxiliary Security Forces: Strength, Structure
and the German Attitude 328
Dogmatism vs. Reality: Byelorussian “Self-Defense” and
the “Home Guard” 350
Strange Allies: Armija Krajowa and Germans 358
“Untermenschen” in SS Uniforms 364
Contents ix
Summary 391
Appendix: SS and Military Ranks 405
Glossary 407
Bibliography 411
Index of Places 423
Index of Persons 429
