It has been 70 years since J. Stalin issued GKO Order 2383 ss "On the additional mobilization of Germans for the national economy of the USSR." This decree mobilized 70,780 Russian German men and 52,742 women into the labor army (A. German and A. Kurochkin, Nemtsy SSSR v trudovoi armii (1941-1955), Moscow: Gotika, 1998, p. 63). I have translated a copy of the decree below.
On the additional mobilization of Germans for the national economy of the USSR
GKO USSR No. 2383 ss
7 October 1942
In addition to resolution GOKO no. 1123 ss from 10 January 1942 and no. 1281 ss from 14 February 1942 the State Committee of Defense resolves:
1. To additionally mobilize in work columns for the whole time of the war all German men ages 15-16 and 51-55, capable of physical labor, that were resettled from central oblasts of the USSR and the Volga German Republic within the bounds of the Kazakh SSR and eastern oblasts of the RSFSR, and living in other oblasts, krais, and republics of the Soviet Union.
2. To simultaneously undertake the mobilization into work columns for the whole time of the war also German women aged 16 to 45.
Freed from mobilization are German women who are pregnant and have children under three years of age.
3. Those having children over three years of age are to give them over to other members of their family to be reared. In the absence of other members of the family, except those mobilized, the children are to be given over to close relatives or German kolkhozes for rearing.
To require workers deputies of local Soviets to take measures to accommodate the children of mobilized Germans remaining without parents.
4. The conduct of the mobilization of Germans is to be entrusted to the NKO and NKVD with the involvement of local organs of Soviet power.
The mobilization is to start immediately and finish within a month.
5. To require all mobilized Germans to appear at collection points with proper winter clothing, a supply of linen, bedding, a cup, a spoon, and a 10 days supply of food.
6. To establish criminal accountability for conscripted Germans who do not show up to the collection points for mobilization and willfully leave work or desert the work column - by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 26. XII - 1941. "On the accountability of workers and employees in military industrial enterprises for willfully leaving these enterprises."
7. German men mobilized by order of this present resolution are to be transferred to work in enterprises of the trusts "Cheliabugol'" and "Karagandaugol'" in the Peoples Commissariat of Coal.
Mobilized German women are to be transferred to enterprises in the Peoples Commissariat of Oil.
8. To require the NKPS (Comrade Khulev) and the administration of military communications of the NKO (Comrade Kovalev) to supply transport for the mobilized Germans according to the orders of the NKO and NKVD.
9. To require the Peoples Commissariat of Oil USSR and Peoples Commissariat of Coal USSR to provide for the reception, distribution and rational use of the transferred work force of mobilized Germans.
Expenses in relationship to the mobilization and transport of the mobilized to places of designation are to be taken from calculated estimates of the Peoples Commissariat of Coal and Peoples Commissariat of Oil.
10. To require the Peoples Commissariat of Trade USSR (Comrade Liubimov) to supply food to the mobilized in transit.
11. NKVD USSR and NKO are to report to the State Committee of Defense about the results of the mobilization of the Germans and the number of Germans transferred to enterprises of the Peoples Commissariat of Coal and the Peoples Commissariat of Oil
Chairman of the State Committee of Defense
J. Stalin
Source: V. Auman and V. Chebatreva (eds.), Istoriia rossiskhikh nemtsev v dokumentakh (1763-1992 gg.), Moscow: MIGP, 1993, pp. 172-173. Translated from Russian to English by J. Otto Pohl.
In the town a couple of dozen miles north of Moscow, where my first wife was from, there is this persistent story about the days in the winter of 1941 when Nazis were rapidly advancing towards the capital.
ReplyDeleteThey say, one of those days some Internal Troops showed up and quickly formed an 'opolchenie' from the residents of the town who weren't smart enough to hide - men, women, old people. Everybody. They gave them some training rifles - wooden rifles that can't shoot - with bayonets attached to them, and forced them to attack Nazi troops, armed with machine guns and Panthers. No one survived, apparently.
Oh well. I suppose this is what 'attrition warfare' is all about...